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Proletarian  Dictatorship 
and  Terrorism 


BY   Karl   Radek 


THE      MARXIAN      EDUCATIONAL      SOCIETY 

5941  JOS.  C  A  M  P  A  U  A  V  E.,  D  E  TR  O  I  T,  MICH. 


Froieyrian  Diciaiorsiiip 
.  and  Terrorism 


BY    Karl    Radek 


^^ 


Translated  by  P.  LA  VIN 


The     Marxian     Educational     Society 

5941  Jos.  Campau  Ave.,  Detroit,  Mich. 


COPYRIGHT   APPLIED   FOR 
MARXIAN   EDUCATIONAL   SOCIETY 


All  rights  re.served. 


'^7f       '^;^^ 


HA  5G     _ 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS: 

i 

Page 

Foreword    7 

Chapter  I  —  Karl  Kautsky's  Autumn  offensive  against 

Soviet    Russia    13 

Chapter  II  —  The  Terror  of  the  Jacobins  16 

Chapter  III  —  The  Model  Dictatorship  22 

Chapter  IV  —  The  Softening  Influence  of  Democracy 

on    Manners    31 

Chapter  V  —  The  Russian  Sodom  and  Gomorrha  37 

Chapter  VI  —  Either Or 53 


PCLlTlClLiciSjCE 


FOREWORD. 

It  has  been  suggested  that  when  one  is  confronted  with 
that  unlovely  spectacle,  the  revolutionary  turned  cautious,  one 
should  be  very  chary  of  attributing  unworthy  motives  to  him 
in  explanation  of  the  change,  as  the  case  of  the  seeming 
apostate  is  really  one  that  calls  for  pathological  investigation. 
An  obvious  objection  to  this  view  is  that  if  the  perversion  is 
due  to  the  operation  of  some  as  yet  undiscovered  disease,  the 
peculiar  malady  generally  strikes  its  victim  at  a  time  when  he 
has  just  been  made  the  recipient  of  some  signal  favor  by  his 
(capitalist)  government.  However,  in  these  days  of  disillusion- 
ments,  one  is  sometimes  tempted  to  believe  that  there  may  be 
some  truth  in  the  theory.  The  experience  that  Socialists  had  of 
seeing  a  number  of  men  whom  they  had  respected  and  looked 
up  to  as  leaders  coming  out,  one  after  another,  in  support  of 
the  late  war,  was  calculated  to  damp  considerably  their  faith 
in  human  nature.  There  is,  to  be  sure,  the  consolation  that 
the  plague  of  Intellectuals  that  has  for  so  many  years  afflicted 
the  Socialist  movement  in  Great  Britain  and  other  advanced 
capitalist  countries,  is  likely  to  find  its  sphere  of  operations 
severely  restricted  in  a  time  of  future  crisis.  The  shameful 
desertion  of  the  principles  professed  during  periods  of  com- 
parative calm  by  the  gentlemen  who  were  kind  enough  to 
come  down  from  their  high  estate  and  "lead"  us,  was  too 
flagrant  to  escape  the  notice  of  even  the  least  observant. 
(One  of  these  champions  of  the  proletariat,  Mr.  H.  M.  Hynd- 
man,  used  to  be  very  fond  of  telling  us  that  the  phenomenon 
of  superior  people  like  himself  coming  down  to  direct  the 
movement  of  the  workers,  was  one  that  was  common  through- 
out history.)  The  case  of  the  hterary  Intellectuals — men 
who  had,  after  years  of  efifort,  won  a  "public"  they  were 
determined  to  keep,  no  matter  how  great  the  sacrifice  of  prin- 


8 

ciple  involved — was,  from  the  nature  of  their  profession,  the 
most  notorious.  Britain,  which  had  led  the  way  in  so  many 
departments  of  human  activity,  has  upheld  its  pioneer  tradi- 
tion by  producing  the  classic  example  of  literary  treachery^ — • 
Mr.  George  Bernard  Shaw.  (If  any  reader  objects  that  Mr. 
Shaw  is  an  Irishman,  the  reply  is  that  he  considers  himself 
an  Englishman.  England  is  his  spiritual — and  financial — 
home.)  This  man,  who  makes  his  living  by  trading  on  the 
ignorance  and  the  credulity  of  the  British  people,  wrote  a 
book  (a  new  edition  of  which  appeared  shortly  before  the 
war  broke  out)  containing  one  of  the  most  trenchant  expos- 
ures of  Imperialism  and  militarism  ever  penned — this  man 
appeared  as  a  supporter  of  an  Empire,  the  course  of  whose 
history  has  been  aptly  described  as  "one  reeking  path  of  in- 
famies," in  what  was  perhaps  tlie  most  criminal  of  all  its 
criminal  wafs.  To  realize  the  depth  of  infamy  reached  by 
him  and  others  of  his  type  who  still  wish  to  compel  subject 
nations  to  remain  in  the  British  Empire,  it  is  only  necessary 
to  refer  to  the  treatment  meted  out  by  that  Empire's  rulers  to 
the  people  of  Ireland.  The  details  here  given  may  have  the 
efifect  of  turning  the  attention  of  some  pacifist  propagandists 
from  the  violent  tactics  of  the  Russian  Government,  and 
directing  it  to  the  methods  of  a  terrorist  governing  gang 
whose  ferocity  has  seldom,  if  ever,  been  equalled  within  the 
historical  period,  and  whose  only  possible  rivals  in  the  dis- 
graceful competition  of  atrocities  would  appear  to  be  their 
cousins  who  rule  the  mighty  Empire  camouflaged  under  the 
title  of  the  United  States  of  America. 

Erom  May  to  December,  1916,  38  Irish  citizens  were  mur- 
dered, 1,949  deported,  3,226  arrested,  119  court  martialed 
and  160  sentenced.  In  the  same  ])eriod  13  newspapers  were 
suppressed.  In  1917  there  were  7  murders,  24  deportations, 
18  armed  assaults  on  civilians.  349  arrests. — 38  court-mar- 
tialed, 269  sentences.    Three  newspapers  were  suppressed. 

In  1918  six  people  were  murdered,  91  deported,  1,107  ar- 
rested, 973   sentenced,  62  court-martialed,  and   81    assaulted 


by  armed  assailants.  The  number  of  newspapers  suppressed 
was  12. 

In  the  two  years  1917  and  1918  there  were  271  armed 
raids  on  private  houses. 

These  figures,  culled  from  the  columns  of  a  censored  Press, 
are  necessarily  incomplete. 

During  all  this  time  flic  Irish  people  maintained  an  attitude 
of  passive  resistance.  No  attacks  zuere  made  by  them  upon 
the  bauds  of  ruffians  called  by  Government  apologists  "the 
armed  forces  of  the  Crotvn." 

In  1919  there  were  13,782  armed  raids  on  private  houses, 
959  arrests  for  political  offenses,  636  cf  those  arrested  being 
sentenced,  209  courts-martial  of  civilians,  20  deportations,  335 
proclamations  suppressing  meetings,  fairs  and  markets,  476 
armed  attacks  on  unarmed  gatheringijs  and  individuals,  8 
murders  of  civilians,  and  25  suppressions  of  newspapers. 

In  1920,  185  Irish  citizens  were  murdered,  and  417  were 
wounded.  These  figures  do  not  include  casualties  in  action, 
civilian  casualties  arising  accidentally  from  conflicts  between 
British  and  Republican  troops,  or  these  sustained  in  the  po- 
groms in  North-East  Ulster. 

Speaking  at  Widnes  in  December  of  this  year  Mr.  Arthur 
Henderson,  M.  P..  one  of  the  Labor  tools  of  the  British  Gov- 
ernment, said :  "It  is  actually  true  to  say  that  life  ivas  safer 
in  Brussels  during  the  German  occupation  than  it  is  nozv  in 
Dublin,  Cork,  or  Derry.  No  man  is  safe,  and  even  women 
and  children  run  risks  of  being  shot  in  the  streets." 

From  1st  of  January  to  18th  of  June,  1921,  60  men, 
5  women,  and  17  children  were  murdered  by  reckless  and 
indiscriminate  firing,  and  144  men,  33  women,  and  23  children 
were  wounded.  In  the  same  period  131  men  were  assassinated 
in  or  near  their  homes  o»  whilst  in  custody,  and  24  Irish 
prisoners  of  war  were  executed.  Raids,  arrests,  imprison- 
ments and  suppressions  have  been  carried  out  on  such  a  large 


10 


scale  that  even  approximately  accurate  computation  is  im- 
possible. According  to  British  official  figures  more  than  3,200 
Irishmen  are  interned — all  without  trial.  About  1,500  others 
are  serving  sentences  of  penal  servitude  or  hard  labor,  and 
about  1,000  are  in  custody  awaiting  trial  or  interment.  Armed 
raids  on  private  houses  are  of  daily  occurrence. 

In  brief  reference  to  destruction  of  property  may  close 
this  fearful  record,  which,  with  all  its  horror,  can  convey 
but  a  faint  idea  of  the  torture  inflicted  upon  the  brave  Irish 
people.  Some  of  the  houses  were  selected  for  destruction 
because  their  occupants  had  "lent  moral  support  to  the  rebel 
cause !"  We  shall  confine  ourselves  to  the  period  from  Janu- 
ary to  May  of  this  year.  The  figures  include  buildings 
damaged  only,  as  well  as  those  utterly  destroyed :  Shops, 
417 ;  creameries,  7 ;  farm  houses,  165  ;  farm  outbuildings,  32  ; 
factories  and  works,  5  ;  crops,  72  ;  halls  and  clubs,  28 ;  private 
residences,  233  ;  other  premises,  55. 

But  to  return  to  our  fair-weather  revolutionaries  of  the 
literary  world.  America,  of  course,  supplied  many  examples 
of  literary  apostasy.  Suffice  it  to  name  but  one — Jack  London. 
The  list  of  names  of  members  of  this  unholy  fraternity  could 
be  considerably  extended  by  additions  from  many  other 
countries,  but  none  other  need  be  mentioned  than  that  of 
Herr  Karl  Kautsky,  whose  disgraceful  attack  on  Communism 
and   Communists  occasioned  the  present  pamphlet. 

Until  recently  those  who  professed  to  be  Socialists  could 
have  been  divided  into  two  sections — on  the  one  hand,  the 
followers  of  Marx,  and  on  the  other,  those  who,  without  read- 
ing Marx,  were  convinced  in  some  mysterious  way,  that  he 
was  "all  wrong."  Now,  however,  the  position  of  affairs  might 
be  accurately  described  by  parai)hrasing  the  statement  of  an 
English  statesman,  famous  in  his  day,  so  as  to  make  it  read, 
"We  are  all  Marxians  now."  Kautsky's  facility  in  quoting 
Marxian  Scripture  in  an  attempt  to  justify  his  reactionary 
attitude,  reminds  one  of  the  dexterity  attributed  to  the  Enemy 
of  Man  in  handling.  Christian  texts  to  suit  his  own  purposes. 


11 

And  thus  is  Marx  pressed  into  the  service  of  the  counter- 
revolution. Frederick  Engels,  writing  in  1890  of  the  demon- 
strations then  being  held  in  Europe  and  America  in  favor 
of  an  eight-hour  working  day,  and  commenting  on  the  fact 
that  the  proletarians  of  all  lands  were  indeed  united,  said 
wistfully,  "Were  Marx  but  with  me  to  see  it  with  his  own 
eyes!"  It  was  an  interesting,  if  unprohtablc,  occupation  to 
speculate  on  what  Engels  would  have  said  on  hearing  of  such 
a  perversion  of  Marx  as  Kautsky  and  his  imitators  have  been 
guilty  of. 

It  is  when  one  considers  cases  of  this  kind  that  one  turns 
eagerly,  if  somewhat  irrationally,  to  solutions  such  as  the 
pathological  one  already  referred  to.  The  author  of  this 
pamphlet,  however,  has  no  faith  in  theories  cf  this  kind, 
as  the  reader  will  discover  before  he  has  read  very  many  pages. 

In  answer  to  Kautsky's  condemnation  of  the  Bolsheviks 
for  using  violence  against  their  opponents.  Radek  cites  some 
of  the  bloody  deeds  of  the  ruling  classes  in  their  all  too  suc- 
cessful attempts  to  crush  the  workers.  Like  most  people 
who  know  something  of  the  horrors  perpetrated  upon  work- 
ing classes  and  subject  nations  by  their  rulers  since  the  far 
off  days  when  the  suppression  of  a  workers'  rebellion  was 
signalized  by  the  crucifixion,  along  the  great  military  high- 
ways of  the  Roman  Empire,  of  captured  slaves,  whose  writh- 
ing bodies  were  intended  to  have  a  deterrent  effect  upon  any 
who  dared  to  think  of  interfering  with  the  "rights  of  private 
property,"  down  to  the  cowardly  butchery  of  the  dying  James 
Connolly  and  his  gallant  comrades,  and  the  massacres  of  the 
Russian  workers  by  the  hirelings  of  Entente  Capitalism — 
like  most  such  people  Karl  Radek  has  little  patience  with  men 
like  Kautsky  who  condemn  the  victorious  Russian  workers 
for  employing  "terrorist  methods."  The  cowardly  subterfuge 
that  violence  is  indefensible,  at  all  times  and  under  all  cir- 
cumstances, is  not  calculated  to  disturb  the  capitalist  govern- 
ments of  the  world,  which  have  no  intention  of  scrapping 
their  armies  and  their  navies  and  their  air  fleets,  and  which 


12 

are  quite  willing  to  suffer  the  peculiar  propaganda,  with  its 
implied  censure  upon  themselves,  to  continue,  for  the  sake 
of  its  possible  effect  upon  the  proletariat.  They  realize  the 
power  of  the  "persuasive  eloqence  of  example,"  and  their 
appreciation  of  this  power  has  heightened  considerably  since 
the  Russian  workers,  sword  in  hand,  cut  their  way  through 
the  tangle  of  feudal  and  capitalist  impediments  that  beset  their 
path,  and  shook  out  the  folds  of  the  Red  Flag  over  the  palace 
of  the  Czars.  This,  in  the  eyes  of  the  capitalist  lords  of  the 
earth,  is  pre-eminently  an  example  to  be  avoided  by  the  work- 
ers of  other  countries ;  and  to  dissuade  the  latter  from  adopting 
the  same  course  as  the  Russian  proletariat,  they  are  freely 
utilizing  the  services  of  Socialist  renegades  like  Karl  Kautsky. 

The  attitude  of  opponents  of  violence,  who  place  assassin 
and  victim,  garrotter  and  garrotted,  counter-revolutionary 
hireling  and  Red  Guardsman,  Black-and-Taimer  and  Sinn 
Fein  soldier,  on  the  same  moral  level — and  that  a  low  one 
— is  really  Christian  Science  turned  inside  out.  The  Chris- 
tian Scientist  can  see  no  evil :  the  pacifist  can  see  no  good. 
This  is  clearly  trifling  with  the  question,  and  it  is  difficult  to 
believe  that  those  who  voice  this  peculiar  opinion,  and  whose 
power  of  discriminating  between  right  and  wrong  is  not 
utterly  atrophied,  are  really  sincere. 

From  the  circumstance  that  the  capitalists  are  prepared 
to  adopt  so  many  and  so  diverse  means  as  they  are  more  or 
less  openly  employing  to  avert  the  coming  proletarian  revolu- 
tion, it  may  be  inferred  that  they  believe  that  the  term  of 
their  long  dominion  is  approaching.  And  every  man  and 
woman  who  have  the  interests  of  the  human  family  at  heart 
will  sincerely  hope  that  their  apprehension  is  well  founded ! 

July,  1921.  PATRICK  LAVIN. 


CHAPTER  1. 

KARL    KAUTSKY'S    AUTUMN    OFFENSIVE    AGAINST 

SOVIET   RUSSIA. 

The  English  general  who  represents  "democracy"  by  the 
grace  of  the  City  of  London  and  of  Wall  Street,  and  who 
is  organizing  the  crusade  of  English  Imperialism  against  the 
Russia  of  the  workers  and  peasants,  announced  an  offensive 
by  fourteen  nations.  But  the  "nations"  expected  to  attack 
have  remained  aloof,  the  generals  of  the  counter-revolution 
are  in  part  defeated,  and  the  London  slave-holders  have  been 
unable  to  overthrow  Soviet  Russia'  in  spite  of  their  tanks 
and  poison  gas,  their  bombardment  of  open  towns  and  all 
other  manifestations  of  the  Fourteen  Points  of  the  Wilsonian 
scheme  for  making  the  world  happy.  When  the  divisions 
amongst  the  slaves  which  were  expected  by  the  rulers  of  the 
world  did  not  take  place  because  the  people  did  not  think 
it  necessary  to  assist  in  the  restoration  of  Czarism,  the 
Entente  received  assistance  from  an  unexpected  quarter.  At 
a  time  when  the  Russian  workers  are  waging  a  heroic  fight 
in  defense  of  their  government  Herr  Karl  Kautsky  hastens 
to  the  assistance  of  the  international  counter-revolution — 
Karl  Kautsky,  the  theorist  of  the  sacred  Second  International, 
and  to  this  day  a  member  of  the  German  Independent  Social 
Democratic  Party,  and  what  is  more,  its  trusted  representative 
at  international  conferences,  which  are  supposed  to  strive  for 
the  restoration  of  the  unity  of  the  working  class.  While  long 
rows  of  priests  with  swinging  censers  march  in  front  of 
Kolchak's  troops,  and  endeavor  to  break  the  courage  of  the 
peasants  in  the  Red  Army  by  holding  aloft  sacred  images, 
Karl  Kautsky  holds  up  to  the  view  of  the  proletariat  of  Russia 
and   of    Europe   a  picture  of   wonder-working   democracy   in 


14 

one  hand  and  a  terrible  picture  of  proletarian  despotism  in 
the  other.  His  book  is  entitled  "Tcrroristn  and  Communism," 
not  "Terrorism  and  Capitalism." 

He  does  not  tell  how  the  American  trusts  in  the  "freest 

democracy  in  the  world"  sought  for  decades  to  bow  the  work- 
ers under  the  yoke  of  slavery  by  open  and  reckless  violence 
(as  witness  Colorado!),  or  how  the  same  thing  in  another 
form  happened  in  all  "democratic"  States  before  the  war. 
He  does  not  discuss  how  the  capitalist  cliques  plunged  the 
world  into  the  frightful  five  years  slaughter  without  asking 
a  single  one  of  the  nations  involved  its  opinion  on  the  matter. 
He  does  not  say  one  word  of  how  during  the  period  of  the 
world  war  the  Imperialist  dictatorship  was  set  up  everywhere, 
of  how  millions  of  the  sons  of  the  people  were  destroyed 
in  battle,  or  of  how  in  the  towns  thousands  upon  thousands 
were  starved  in  prison.  He  does  not  tell  how  the  revolu- 
tionary Kerensky  Government,  at  the  bidding  of  the  Paris 
Bourse,  caused  thousands  to  be  cut  down  at  the  front  in 
order  to  bring  about  the  July  offensive  of  1917.  The  history 
of  terrorism  in  the  present  revolutionary  epoch  begins  for 
him  with  the  Bolsheviks.  "The  Bolsheviks  in  Russia  began 
it;''  and  Herr  Noske,  who  defended  German  Capitalism  with 
machine-guns  and  mine-throwers  against  the  German  pro- 
letariat, is  certified  by  Karl  Kautsky,  with  extraordinary  im- 
pudence, to  have  "follozved  boldly  in  Trotsky's  footsteps." 
This  Noske  has  the  honor  to  be  the  subject  of  an  "historical" 
investigation  by  Kautsky — not  an  ex  parte  work,  however, 
because  such  an  examination  would  disclose  a  certain  con- 
nection betiveen  the  dying  system  of  Capitalism  defending 
its  poiver,  on  the  one  hand,  and  terrorism  on  the  other;  which 
does  not  interest  Herr  Kautsky,  since  he  has  written  a  book 
against  Communism,  not  against  Capitalism.  This  book  has 
aroused  the  enthusiasm  not  only  of  Fritz  Stampfer.  of  the 
"P>ankfurter  Zeitung,"  but  even  of  the  "Lokalawzeizer." 
We  might  ignore  it  altogether,  but  it  exhibits  so  well  the 
intellectual  slovenliness  of  the  worthy  theorist  of  the  so-called 
Second    International   that   it   is   worth   a    few   minutes'   con- 


15 

sideraT.ion ;  all  the  more  so  that  the  "luminous  historical  per- 
formance"— as  Haase  calls  it — has  been  quoted  ad  nauseum, 
not  only  by  Social  Patriots  and  Right  Independents  (as 
Hilferding  and  Strobel),  but  even  by  people  who,  like 
Ledebour,  still  have  the  reputation  of  being  revolutionary 
politicians.  The  outcry  against  terrorist  methods,  the  watch- 
word "Dictatorship  zvithout  terrorism,"  is  the  latest  attempt 
to  mislead  the  workers  now  that  it  seems  hopeless  to  prevent 
the  spread  of  knowledge  of  the  necessity  for  the  dictatorship 
on  proletarian  grounds.  "Dictatorship  without  terrorism" 
is  the  last  refuge  of  the  opponents  of  the  proletarian  dictator- 
ship. Kautsky's  book  is  their  weapon.  It  will  be  very  easily 
broken,  however,  for  it  is  a  sword  of  cardboard. 


CHAPTER   II. 

THE  TERROR  OF  THE  JACOBINS. 

As  a  learned  man  Herr  Kautsky  has  a  natural  desire  to 
follow  up  the  history  of  terrorism  since  the  Creation.  But, 
thank  God !  these  "luminous"  details  are  spared  us.  We 
learn  only  that  beasts  of  prey,  and  especially  our  remote 
ancestors,  the  apes,  knew  no  dictatorship.  They  lived  for 
the  most  part  on  a  vegetable  diet  which  they  "now  and  then 
supplemented  with  smaller  animals,  caterpillars,  worms,  rep- 
tiles and  even  unfledged  birds."  They  never  killed  mammals. 
"No  ape  does  the  like,"  declares  Kautsky,  to  our  great  peace 
of  mind  and  to  the  greater  damnation  of  the  Bolsheviks,  who, 
as  is  well  known,  take  the  lead  in  the  destruction  of  capitalist 
mammals.  But  still  the  Jacobins  of  1793  were  before  them, 
and  as  the  Jacobins  were  overtaken  by  their  punishment  he 
devotes  more  space  in  his  investigation  to  them  to  our  ven- 
erable ancestors,  the  apes. 

His  condemnation  of  the  Jacobins,  the  direct  ancestors 
of  the  Bolsheviks,  can  be  comprised  in  the  sentence  in  which 
he  compresses  the  French  Proudhonists'  opinion  of  them : 
"They  (the  Proudhonists)  sazv  through  the  illusions  which 
led  to  the  Reign  of  Terror,  zvhich  mislead  the  proletariat  and 
brought  them  to  a  state  of  bloody  savagery  zvithoiit  taking 
them  one  step  nearer  to  their  freedom."  Kautsky  supports 
this  opinion  in  the  following  manner:  Robespierre  and  his 
Government  wished  as  a  party  to  represent  the  interests  of 
the  proletariat  and  the  petit-bourgeoisie.  When  they  attained 
to  power  they  and  the  proletarian  masses  behind  them  sought 
to  use  the  machinery  of  the  State  "in  order  to  realize  that 
kingdom  of  equality  which  the  thinkers  of  the  bourgeoisie 
had  promised  them."     "As  a  result  the  poor  Parisians  came 


into  increasing  antagonism  to  the  peasants,  the  middlemen, 
the  rich  people — to  all  those  elements,  in  short,  which  were 
most  favored  by  private  property  in  the  means  of  produc- 
tion, whose  abolition  by  the  domination  of  small  industry 
was  impossible."  "As  it  was  impossible  for  them  to  alter 
the  process  of  production  they  attempted,  by  their  machinery 
of  power,  to  distribute  the  products  of  that  process  by  means 
with  which  we  in  our  own  time  have  become  all  to  familiar : 
high  prices,  compulsory  loans  which  roughly  correspond  to 
our  payments  for  purposes  of  defense,  and  similar  impositions 
which  did  not  work  less  misery  then  than  now  with  the  then 
system  of  widely  scattered  production,  the  paucity  of  statistics, 
and  the  weakness  of  the  central  authority  as  against  the  dis- 
tricts. The  contradiction  between  the  political  power  of  the 
proletariat  and  their  poor  economic  position  became  more 
and  more  marked.  The  afifliction  caused  by  the  war  was 
thereby  rendered  more  acute.  And  in  despair  the  rulers  of 
the  proletariat  more  and  more  rapidly  adopted  extreme 
measures  and  ended  with  a  bloody  terror."  But  as  on  the 
basis  of  private  property  during  the  war  with  its  immense 
operations  a  new  bourgeoisie  was  bound  to  arise,  while  want 
and  the  war  exhausted  the  masses,  the  policy  of  terror  neces- 
sarily ended  with  the  defeat  of  Termidor.  And  yet  again : 
the  illusion  that  men  can  introduce  the  "general  well-being" 
had  led  the  proletariat  and  their  leaders  to  adopt  the  policy 
of  terrorism,  has  "befooled"  the  proletariat  and  "reduced  them 
to  savagery"  "without  bringing  them  one  step  nearer  freedom" 
— that  is  the  "lucid"  examination  of  the  epoch  of  the  Jacobin 
Terror  by  the  leading  theorist  of  the  Second  International. 

But  what  was  the  actual  state  of  affairs?  First  of  all 
Robespierre,  St.  Just  and  the  other  leading  men  of  the  "Moun- 
tain" did  not  represent  the  proletariat  at  all  and  did  not  even 
desire  to  represent  them.  The  party  of  the  proletariat  and 
of  the  proletarian  petit-bourgeoisie  was  represented  by  Roux, 
Varlet,  Dolivet,  Chalier,  Seclerc,  and  other  bearers  of  the 
Communist  agitation  who  were  fought  in  the  fiercest  manner 
and 'ultimately  sent  to  the  guillotine  by  the  "Mountain"  and 


f 


18 

the  Robespierrian  elements  precisely  because  of  their  Com- 
munist tendencies.  In  a  more  modified  form  the  Paris 
Commune,  under  the  leadership  of  Chaumette  (who  likewise 
was  sent  to  the  guillotine  by  Robespierre)  represented  the 
proletarian  interests.  Robespierre  and  his  government  stood 
I  resolutely  uii  the  platform  of  boiirijcois  private  property, 
*  and  this  found  expression  as  follows  in  the  Constitution  of 
1793  :  "The  right  to  property  is  granted  to  every  citizen  and 
the  right  to  enjoy  his  income  and  the  fruits  of  his  labor  and 
industry  and  to  dispose  of  them  as  he  thinks  proper,"  and 
again  !  "Not  even  the  smallest  part  of  his  property  can  be 
taken  from  him  except  when  demanded  by  public  necessity, 
and  then  only  on  condition  that  just  compensation  be  given." 
Robespierre  ivas  a  representative  of  bourgeois  Republicanism 
— neither  more  nor  less.  He  came  to  power  on  the  wave  of 
the  proletarian-petit-bourgeois  movement  when  the  French 
Revolution,  after  three  years  of  existence,  had  not  abolished 
either  feudalism  or  the  monarchy.  Deceived  by  the  Feuillants 
and  the  Girondists — that  is.  by  the  representatives  of  the 
constitutional  nobility  and  large  capital — the  masses  of  the 
people  returned  the  bourgeois  democracy — the  "Mountain" 
— to  power.  Against  their  radical  bourgeois  measures,  the 
actual  abolition  of  feudal  dues  (on  4th  August,  1789,  they 
were  only  abolished  on  ])aper),  the  realization  of  democracy, 
the  decapitation  of  tl.ie  King,  etc. — the  feudal  counter-revo- 
lution entered  into  union  with  England,  Prussia  and  Austria 
for  a  furious  resistance.  Then  began  the  war  on  all  fronts 
against  the  armies  of  the  coalition  as  well  as  against  domestic 
counter-revolution.  The  greatest  scarcity  prevailed  through- 
out the  country.  The  revolutionary  armies  bad  no  .shoes, 
clothing,  or  food.  In  the  country  ruined  by  feudalism,  and 
suffering  from  the  1)ad  harvests  of  many  years,  there  was 
a  shortage  of  everything.  What  could  a  radical  l)ourgeois 
government  do  in  the  circumstances?  Had  it  been  acciuainted 
with  Kautsky's  "Erfurt  IVogram"  it  would  ])c'rhaps  have 
renounced  its  "illu.sions,"  have  given  u]i  the  struggle  and 
abandoned  the  country  to  feudalism.     But  since  they,  ha]^:)ily, 


had  no  presentiment  of  that  gentleman's  castrated  Marxism 
they  sought  no  "statistical"  reasons  for  abandoning  the 
struggle,  but  fought  with  all  the  means  at  their  disposal,  in- 
cluding that  of  terrorism,  against  speculation  and  counter- 
revolutionary treachery  and  defeated  the  armies  of  the 
counter-revolution.  How  little  they  pursued  illusions  is 
shown  by  their  struggle  against  the  Communist  current  which 
strove  for  far-reaching,  but  at  that  time  unattainable  reforms. 
When  the  power  of  the  feudal  counter-revolution  was  broken 
the  task  of  the  bourgeois-terrorist  Government  was  fulfilled. 
Even  the  bourgeoisie  were  unwilling  to  tolerate  it  any  longer. 
That  was  the  cause  of  the  9th  of  Termidor,  and  of  the  fall 
of   Robespierre. 

This  was  well  understood  by  Mignet  although  he  wrote 
his  history  of  the  French  Revolution  almost  a  hundred  years 
ago,  and  in  the  language  of  the  Restoration.  He  says  in  his 
book:  "The  numerous  victories  of  the  Republic,  to  7vJiicJi  its 
drastic  measures  or  great  enthusiasm  greatly  contributed, 
made  violence  on  its  part  superfluous.  It  zvas  the  Committee 
of  Public  Safety  i<'hicJi  held  dozi'ii  the  interior  of  France 
li'ith  a  strong  and  terrible  hand,  and  at  the  same  time  opened 
sources  of  assistance,  created  armies,  discovered  field-marshals 
and  achieved  victories  by  which  the  triumph  of  the  Revolu- 
tion against  Europe  zvas  ultimately  assured.  A  favorable 
situation  no  longer  demanded  the  same  efforts,  and  the  prob- 
lem was  solved,  as  it  is  the  peculiar  characteristic  of  such  a 
dictatorship  to  save  a  country  and  a  cause  and  to  perish  itself 
in  the  work  of  salvation.  "The  opposition  which  the  Jacobin 
Terror  showed  to  bourgeois  private  property  means  for  Karl 
Kautsky  no  more  than  the  bankruptcy  of  an  illusion.  A  cer- 
tain Frederick  Fngels,  however,  wrote :  In  order  that  even 
those  fruits  of  victory  should  be  secured  which  were  ripe 
at  that  time  it  was  necessary  that  the  revolution  should  be 
carried  considerably  beyond  its  goal — exactly  as  in  France 
in  1793  and  in  Germany  in  1848.  This,  in  fact,  appears  to 
be  a  law  of  development  of  bourgeois  society.      ("Historical 


20 

Materialism.")  In  order  finally  to  abolish  feudal  property 
and  to  trample  the  feudal  restoration  in  the  dust  it  was  neces- 
sary for  the  bourgeois  revolution  to  lay  violent  hands  on 
bourgeois  private  property.  It  was  bound  to  be  wrecked  in 
the  long  run,  but  its  task — the  destruction  of  feudalism — 
could  not  have  been  accomplished  zvithout  terrorism.  Who- 
ever asserts  that  it  thereby  "fooled"  the  proletariat  and 
"brutalized"  them,  "without  bringing  them  one  step  nearer 
to  their  freedom,"  claims  that  the  liberation  of  the  proletariat 
is  possible  without  overthrowing  feudalism  and  absolutism. 
Such  a  one  has  indeed  remained  true  to  the  high  type  of  our 
ancestors,  the  apes,  who,  "for  the  most  part,  lived  on  a 
vegetable  diet"  (chewing  the  cud  of  the  Marxian  A.  B.  C.) 
this  nourishment  being  "now  and  then  supplemented  by 
smaller  animals,  caterpillars,  worms,  reptiles  and  even  un- 
fledged birds"  (the  slaughter  of  social-reformist  professors 
and  Revisionists)  but  will  never  understand  a  revolution — 
not  even  a  bourgeois  revolution  let  alone  a  proletarian  one. 

It  was  not  ahvays  so  with  Kautsky.  In  his  polemic  against 
Eisner  after  the  Amsterdam  Congress  he  wrote  as  follows  of 
the  epoch  of  the  Jacobin  Terror:  "In  the  struggle  of  1789-90 
the  lower  masses  of  the  people,  especially  in  Paris,  learned 
their  power.  They  conquered,  but  the  fruits  of  their  victory 
were  gathered  by  the  possessing  classes.  The  lower  classes 
could  not  then  stand  aside.  They  had  again  to  set  forth 
on  the  path  of  liberty  and  equality  in  order  to  emerge  from 
their  poverty  and  oppression.  But  as  the  bourgeoisie  resisted 
with  all  their  power  there  was  soon  bound  to  be  a  desperate 
struggle  between  the  two  classes.  The  antagonism  between 
the  classes  had  grown  more  acute,  thanks  to  the  war  which 
the  allied  monarchs  of  Europe  waged  against  revolutionary 
France.  In  this  war  France  could  oidy  zviji  by  the  exertion 
of  all  her  strength,  and  this  could  only  be  brought  about 
through  the  reckless  hatred  of  private  property  zvhich  ani- 
mated the  masses  of  the  people.  Then  (1792-93)  the  mon- 
archy was  uprooted,  universal  suffrage  proclaimed,  the  stand- 


31 

ing  army  abolished,  and  the  anning  of  the  people  effected; 
and  the  wealth  of  the  possessing  classes  was  devoted  to  the 
support  of  the  army  and  of  the  poor.  And  all  this  happened 
in  the  epoch  of  the  Terror,  in  the  period  in  zvhich  the  bour- 
geoisie were  intimidated."  (Unfortunately  I  have  not  the 
original  by  me,  which  appeared  in  "Die  Neue  Zeit,"  1904-5, 
and  am  obliged  to  retranslate  from  a  Polish  version  of 
Kautsky's  work.)  In  1905  Kautsky  was  still  so  befooled 
and  brutalized  by  the  terrorism  of  Robespierre  that  he  saw 
in  the  destruction  of  feudal  absolutism,  of  the  standing  army, 
etc.,  a  glory  which  caused  him  to  recognize  the  epoch  of  the 
Terror  as  one  of  historical  progress.  "Marxism"  did  not 
prevent  him  from  understanding  history :  it  was  not  then 
emasculated.  Only  the  approaching  epoch  of  the  proletarian 
social  revolution  caused  Kautsky  to  break  the  weapon  of 
Marxian  historical  criticism,  as  he  generally  rejects  it  at 
every  encounter  with  the  bourgeoisie.  He  cannot  find  pleasure 
in  turning  away  from  that  which  was  great  in  the  bourgeois 
revolution.  He  sought  for  the  virtues  of  the  proletarian 
revolution  in  its  vices  and  mistakes — in  that  which  was  the 
cause  of  its  weakness.  His  praise  goes  out  to  the  proletarians 
when  they  allow  themselves  to  be  shot  down." 

We  come  now  to  his  treatment  of  the  Paris  Commune 
of  1871 — to  the  second  chapter  of  the  "luminous"  perform- 
ance which  has  so  enchanted  Herr  Haase. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  MODEL  DICTATORSHIP. 

When  the  Commune  of  Paris  was  smothered  in  blood  by 
the  Versaillese ;  when  the  world  boiirp-eoisie  besran  an  Indian 
dance  of  calumny  around  the  fallen  revolutionaries ;  when, 
under  the  influence  of  the  cami^aign  of  slander,  the  worthy 
trade  union  leaders  of  England  took  fright  and  withdrew 
from  the  International  Association — Karl  Marx  covered  the 
mutilated  bodies  of  the  Communards  with  the  flag  of  the 
International.  Marx  did  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  any 
expression  of  solidarity  with  the  Commune  threatened  the 
young  and  weak  First  International  with  the  greatest  danger, 
and  in  spite  of  the  circumstance  that  he  was  very  skeptical 
of  the  wisdom  of  the  Communist  insurrecticn,  as  he  saw  more 
clearly  than  any  other  man  its  fatal  weaknesses.  He  did  not 
do  it  merely  from  a  sentimental  motive  of  solidarity  with  a 
rebellion  in  which  thousands  of  proletarians  with  inspired 
enthusiasm.  He  did  it  because  he,  with  a  highly  developed 
historical  sense,  saw  through  the  chaos  of  the  often  tragi- 
comical errors  and  mistakes  of  the  commune,  through  the 
mists  of  its  confused  ideas,  througli  the  ruins  of  its  half- 
accomplished  deeds,  the  outlines  of  a  new  era,  to  the  building 
of  which  it  had  unknowingly  contributed.  Marx  saw  clearly 
that  the  beacon  of  the  Commune  demonstrated  two  irnpiuiant 
lessons  to  the  ])roletariat.  The  lirst  was  that  the  ])n)]rlariat 
cannot  simply  seize  and  operate  the  old  State  ap])aratus  l)ut 
must  destroy  it  in  order  to  create  a  new  one  ;  the  second  was 
that  the  new  a])]:)aratus  must  difi^er  fundamentally  from  bour- 
geois Parliamentarism  wilh  its  separation  of  ihv  jjmvince  of 
law  making  from  that  of  administration,  and  that  l)oth  must 
Z'  be  united  in  the  workers  associations  of  representatives  which 
would  carry  out  their  own  laws.     These  lessons  of  the  Com- 


23 

riiiine  were,  in  llie  opinion  of  Marx  and  Engels,  of  the  greatest 
nnportance  because  they  showed  to  them  the  essential  nature 
of  the  dictatorship  of  the  proletariat.  Everything  else  in  the 
Commune  was  for  them  a  particular  or  transient  circum- 
stance ;  that  was  the  general  and  permanent :  it  was  that 
which  stamped  the  Commune  of  18/1,  with  all  its  defects,  as 
a  mighty  step  forward,  although  its  immediate  results  were 
nothing  but  ruins  and  meant  the  setting  back  of  the  French 
worker's  movement  for  hfty  years.  Kautsky  and  Bernstein, 
u])Cii  whom  devolved  the  task  of  continuing  the  work  of 
Marx,  did  not  understand  that  they  would  have  to  begin  with 
these  lessons.  Splashing  around  in  the  waters  of  the  opening 
Parliamentary  epoch,  or  grubbing  for  worms  in  the  sands, 
they  did  not  grasp  these  lessons  and  withheld  them  from  the 
knowledge  of  the  proletariat.  We  see  how,  today,  in  the 
face  of  the  Russian  and  German  revolutions,  Karl  Kautsky 
knew  to  begin  with  the  lessons  of  the  Commune. 

He  devotes  forty  pages  to  this  task.  In  these  forty  pages 
he  seeks  to  represent  it  as  an  instance  of  a  model  dictatorship 
which  he  is  prepared  to  accept.  The  Paris  Commune  finds 
favor  in  his  eyes.  It  was  elected  on  the  basis  of  universal 
suffrage  and  therefore  does  not  transgress  the  sacred  laws 
of  democracy.  Herr  Kautsky  is  triumphant.  "And  yet 
Friedrich  Engels  wrote  on  18th  March,  1891,  on  the  twentieth 
anniversary  of  the  Paris  Commune:  'Gentlemen,  do  you 
want  to  know  what  the  dictatorship  of  the  proletariat  is  like? 
Then  look  at  the  Paris  Commune !  That  was  the  dictatorship 
of  the  proletariat !'  It  can  be  seen,  therefore,  that  by  dictator- 
ship Marx  and  Engels  by  no  means  meant  the  abolition  of 
equal  universal  suffrage,  or  of  democracy  in  general.''  Hail 
to  thee,  laurel-crowned  victor!  Karl  Kautsky  triumphs. 
In  another  place  he  cites  my  remarks  from  the  introduction 
to  Bucharin's  pamphlet  on  the  program  where  I  infer  that, 
considered  in  the  abstract,  the  bourgeoisie  can  be  left  in  pos- 
session of  the  franchise,  even  under  the  dictatorship  of  the 
proletariat.  "But  the  revolution  consists  in  this,  that  it  is 
a  civil  war,  in   which  classes,  which  fight  with  cannons  and 


24 

machine-guns,  renounce  the  Homeric  duel  of  words."  These 
statements  of  mine,  written  in  the  summer  of  1918  show  that 
even  the  Russian  Communists  saw  that  the  abolition  of  the 
right  of  the  bourgeoisie  to  vote  was  by  no  means  a  character- 
istic of  the  dictatorship  of  the  proletariat.  They  were  merely 
convinced  that  during  the  period  of  the  civil  war  the  struggle 
of  the  proletariat  with  the  bourgeoisie  assumes  such  an  acute 
form  that  the  common  ground  of  the  democratic  franchise, 
Parliament  as  the  theatre  of  war,  disappears.  What  is  demon- 
strated in  this  connection  by  the  Paris  Commune?  It  was 
(and  Herr  Kautsky  takes  good  care  to  conceal  the  fact)  an 
insurrection  against  the  results  of  universal  suffrage  in  France. 
On  the  basis  of  this  Kautskyan  panacea  the  National  As- 
sembly of  France  came  into  being  in  1871  and  showed  400 
.Monarchists  and  200  Republicans  (and  such  Republicans!). 
It  was  a  faithful  reflection  of  the  reaction  which  prevailed 
in  the  country  districts  and  in  the  small  towns.  The  National 
Assembly  not  only  concluded  peace  with  Bismark,  but  pre- 
pared to  make  war  on  revolutionary  Paris.  And  then — Paris 
rose  against  the  National  Assembly.  "Paris  has  no  right  to 
rebel  against  France ;  it  must,  on  the  contrary,  unreservedly 
recognize  the  supremacy  of  the  National  Assembly" — thus 
was  Paris  apostrophized  by  one  of  its  representatives  and 
mayors,  M.  Clemenceau,  the  "Tiger"  of  today;  and  the  Social- 
istic ancestor  of  Kautsky,  Louis  Blanc,  said  to  the  delegates 
of  the  Commune,  "you  are  rebels  against  a  most  freely  elected 
Assembly."  Mr.  Thiers  declared  "The  Government  would 
betray  the  Assembly,  France  and  civilization  if  it  allowed 
the  forces  of  Communism  and  rebellion  to  be  built  up  along- 
side of  the  lawful  power  called  into  being  by  the  general  voice 
of  the  people."  Herr  Kautsky  quietly  suppresses  the  whole 
controversy  on  principle  in  which  not  only  counter-revolu- 
tionaries like  Thiers,  but  bourgeois  Radicals  and  Socialists 
like  Louis  Blanc  reproached  the  Commune  xvith  treachery 
against  democracy.  The  Communards  defended  themselves 
against  this  charge  by  claiming  that  the  National  Assembly 
had  no  right  to  exist  after  the  conclusion  of  peace,  as  it  was 


V 


25 

only  to  make  peace  it  had  been  elected.  This  polemical  argu- 
ment, however,  was  merely  a  blow  in  the  air,  because  the 
Commune  did  not  represent  an  insurrection  for  the  purpose 
of  compelling  a  new  election,  but  for  the  purpose  of  winning 
special  rfghts  for  Paris  (election  of  its  own  officials.  National 
Guard,  etc.)  in  order  to  save  Paris  and  the  other  large  towns 
from  the  Versaillese  reaction  which  had  found  expression 
through  universal  suffrage.  A  member  of  the  Central  Com- 
mittee of  Paris  declared  in  reply  to  Clemenceau's  reproach 
quoted  above,  "We  are  not  thinking  of  laying  down  laws 
for  France — we  have  suffered  from  that  too  long  already — 

but  we  are  no  longer  willing  that  the  force  of  the  people 
being  outvoted  by  the  backzvard  rural  districts  should  continue. 
The  point  in  question  is  not  whether  your  mandate  or  ours 
(that  is,  the  mandate  of  the  National  Assembly  or  that  of 
the  Communards)  is  the  lawful  one.  We  say  to  you!  'The 
revolution  is  here,  but  we  are  no  usurpers.  We  desire  to 
call  upon  Paris  to  appoint  its  representatives.'  "  While  Herr 
Kautsky,  after  shamelessly  concealing  the  character  of  the 
Commune  as  an  insurrection  against  the  "democratic"  National 
Assembly  represents  the  general  election  to  the  Commune 
as  the  burial  of  its  democratic  character  and  of  the  source  of 
its  power,  this  bowing  of  the  Commune  to  the  democracy  of 
Paris  after  it  had  rebelled  against  the  democracy  of  the 
country  districts,  has  no  meaning  from  the  point  of  view 
of  principle.  The  tactical  manoeuvre  of  the  Commune  is 
perfectly  clear.  The  reaction  against  which  the  Commune 
rebelled  had  not  its  majority  in  Paris  or  in  the  large  towns, 
but  in  the  rural  districts.  Paris,  zvhere  the  proletariat  and 
the  Radical  petit-bourgeoisie  had  a  decisive  majority;  Paris, 
zifhose  counter-revolutionaries  had  fled;  Paris,  which  recog- 
nised the  general  election,  had  nothing  to  do  zvith  democracy 
"in  general:"  what  it  achieved  was  the  subordination  of  all 
others  to  the  mass  of  the  proletariat  and  the  petit-bourgeoisie, 
the  beetrcrs  of  the  Commune. 

From  the  circumstance  that  the  Commune  of   Paris  had 
no  enemies  on  its  own  soil    (the  counter-revolutionaries  and 


26 

the  counter-revolutionary  troops  had  run  away  to  Versailles) 
the  avoidance  of  the  use  of  violence  within  the  walls  of  Paris 
was  assured.  Says  Kautsky  himself :  "The  enemy  which 
was  dangerous  to  it  (the  Commune j  stood  i^'ithoitt  the  zvalls 
of  its  coiiiiiittiiity  and  could  not  be  reached  by  the  agency  of 
terrorism.  The  virtue  of  the  Ccmmune,  therefore,  consists 
in  the  imitation  of  the  people  of  Niirnherg,  who  did  not  hang- 
any  one  they  did  no;  catch.  Our  comrade  Dzierschinski, 
the  chief  of  the  Extraordinary  Commission  in  Moscow,  whom 
Kautsky  abhors,  has  most  assuredly  net  caused  the  death  of 
one  of  the  most  dangerous  enemies  of  Soviet  Russia  m  so 
tar  as  such  enemies  are  out  with  the  Soviet  community  and 
are  not  to  be  reached  by  the  agency  of  terrorism.  TJie  uieans 
of  defense  employed  by  the  Commune  zcas  not  terrorism, 
but  xvar  against  the  VcrsaUlese.  The  Commune  had  conducted 
this  war  in  such  a  manner  that  it  hastened  its  downfall  by 
several  months.  The  armies  of  the  counter-revolution  existed 
merely  as  scattered  remnants  of  the  defeated  and  demoralized 
Napoleonic  army.  The  Commune  had  a  military  preponder- 
ance as  far  as  men,  munitions,  and  the  spirit  of  the  people 
were  concerned.  It  had  on  its  side  the  working  class  of  all 
the  large  towns  of  France.  It  permitted  its  strength  to  be 
split-up  and  dissipated  ;  it  did  not  seek  the  trembling  enemy, 
then  merely  collecting  its  thoughts,  but  allowed  him  to  sur- 
prise it,  it  knew  only  the  heroism  of  a  fight  to  the  death, 
and  nothing  of  the  organizing  of  war.  That  this  is  an  example 
of  the  dictatorship  v.diich  is  to  be  imitated,  even  Kautsky  will 
not  assert. 

What  were  the  reasons  for  this  complete  failure  of  the 
Commune?  It  had  a  sufficient  number  of  officers  who  had 
voluntarily  placed  themselves  at  its  service.  It  had  in  the 
Pole,  Dombrowsky,  a  good  military  leader.  The  masses  of 
the  people  were  prepared  for  any  sacrifice  as  was  shown  by 
their  reckless  fight  when  the  Versaillese  poured  into  the  town. 
The  reason  for  tliis  want  of  offensive  spirit  on  the  part  of  the 
Commune,  withcut  which  a  strong  defence  is  impossible,  icas 
the  absence  of  a     clearly-defined  goal,  which  was  due  to  the 


27 

fact  that  the  Commune  could  form  merely  an  historical  epi- 
sode. The  Franco-German  war  ended  the  epoch  of  bour- 
geois revolutions,  and  introduced  the  era  of  "peaceful"  devel- 
opment of  the  consolidated  capitalist  States  of  Western  and 
Central  Europe.  Not  only  was  the  working  class  a  minority 
of  the  population,  but  industry  was  neither  centralized  nor 
concentrated.  The  economic  backwardness  of  Capitalism 
corresponded  to  the  intellectual  backwardness  of  the  prole- 
tariat, who  although  Socialist  in  sentiment,  could  not  show  a 
large  number  of  men  in  any  single  country  who  knew  how 
Socialist  freedom  was  to  be  attained.  The  foremost  section 
of  the  proletariat  was  split  in  two  parts.  One  of  these  sought 
to  emancipate  itself  socially  by  peaceful  organization  without 
the  knowledge  cf  capitalist  society  ;  the  other  hoped,  by  the 
conquest  of  political  power,  to  reach  the  same  goal  without 
having  any  concrete  plan  for  attaining  it.  When,  on  the  18th 
of  March,  Paris  rose  against  the  Government,  it  had  no  far- 
reaching  aims.  The  workers  defended  their  guns  in  the  cor- 
rect belief  that  Thiers  wanted  to  steal  them  in  order  to  disarm 
Paris,  the  Citadel  of  the  Republic,  and  to  open  the  gates  to 
Social  and  Political  reaction.  The  Government  fled.  The 
proletarians  and  petit-bourgeoisie  of  Paris  rejoiced,  in  com- 
mon with  all  other  parties,  that  they  were  at  liberty  to  elect 
their  Commune,  wilhout  even  suspecting  that  the  flight  of  the 
Government  meant  the  announcement  of  the  fact  that  the 
life-and-death  struggle  had  begun.  They  could  have  laid 
Versaillds  in  ruins  but  did  net  do  so  because  they  had  no 
goal  to  aspire  to  beyond  Paris.  They  wished  to  so  arrange 
matters  that  the  poor  would  be  released  from  the  burden  of 
rents  and  mortgages,  and  they  hoped  that  the  provinces  would 
follow  the  noble  example  of  Paris.  They  did  not  even  inau- 
gurate an  agitation  in  the  provinces.  When  the  siege  by  the 
Versaillese  began  they  could  not  arrive  at  a  common  policy 
because  they  had  no  common  aim.  On  the  social  field  it  was 
not  only  the  want  of  time  (the  Commune  lasted  only  72  days) 
which  prevented  them  from  forming  a  far-seeing  constructive 
policy   for  the  transition   frcm   Capitalism  to   Socialism,   and 


28 

not  only  the  necessity  for  defence.  As  the  transition  to  So- 
ciaHsm  was  impossible  on  account  of  the  scattered  and  small 
scale  character  of  the  industries  of  Paris,  the  Socialism  of  the 
Commune  exhausted  itself  in  measures  of  social  reform  and 
generally  in  plans  for  the  relief  of  the  poor.  When  Kautsky 
declares  that  the  "Marxian  method  of  Socialisation,  which 
closely  resembled  that  of  the  Commune,  is  still  our  method 
to-day,"  it  is  well  to  remember  that  if  the  learned  Marxian 
prophet's  ideas  were  clearer  he  would  not  say  wherein  the 
Marxian  method  of  socialization  consists  if  he  had  not  in 
mind  the  Marxian  measures  for  the  transition  period  which 
were  proposed  in  1848  and  which  fit  the  policy  of  the  Com- 
mune and  the  year  1919  as  well  as  the  spurious  word  "social- 
ization" fits  the  problems  of  the  Socialist  revolution.  There 
is  one  Marxian  method  of  Socialism — that  is,  Marxism. 
Marx  did  not  draw  up  recipes  for  concrete  economic  meas- 
ures for  all  phases  of  the  social  revolution.  Kautsky's  admira- 
tion for  the  "socialization  methods"  of  the  Commune  is  vener- 
ation for  nothing  whatever  in  which  "socialization"  consists, 
at  which  Herr  Kautsky,  at  the  behest  of  Ebert  and  Scheide- 
mann,  together  with  his  learned  young  man  Hilferding, 
labored  so  laboriously  till  he  discovered  that  his  efiforts  were 
so  much  waste  paper.  Kautsky  has  discovered  three  virtues 
in  the  Commune :  first,  the  Communards  hanged  no  counter- 
revolutionaries whom  they  did  not  catch  ;  second,  they  social- 
ized nothing ;  and  third,  they  were  tolerant,  as  they  did  not 
suppress  one  proletarian  section  after  another  as  the  wicked 
Bolsheviks  did.  The  tender  hearted  old  greybeard,  with  his 
tongue  in  his  cheek,  omits  to  mention  one  thing:  Proudhon- 
ists,  Blanquists  and  Internationalists  fought  one  another  bit- 
terly during  the  period  of  the  Commune,  although  their  views, 
as  we  now  see  clearly,  merely  constituted  different  aspects  of 
the  same  confusion.  All  of  them,  however,  bled  for  the  Com- 
mune, for  the  domination  of  the  proletariat.  When,  in  the 
last  days  of  the  Commune,  Vermorel,  a  member  of  the  Min- 
ority of  the  Cummune,  was  transporting  a  wagon  of  muni- 
tions, he  met  Ferre,  a  representative  of  the  Majority,  before 


29 

the  Town  Hall  and  said  to  him  smilingly,  "You  see.  Ferre, 
the  members  of  the  Minority  are  fighting."  "The  members  of 
the  Majority  will  also  do  their  duty,"  replied  Ferre.  And  the 
Communard  Lissagaray  says :  "These  two  men,  who  met 
death  so  nobly,  showed  to  the  people  a  generous  spirit  of 
of  emulation."  But  Socialists  who,  like  Louis  Blanc,  remained: 
with  the  country  people  at  Versailles  ancTdld  not  even  raise 
their  voices  when  captive  Communards  were  shot  down  before 
their  eyes,  have  passed  into  history  as  traitors  to  the  prole- 
tariat. A  Socialist  historian  says  of  Louis  Blanc :  Elected  in 
Paris  to  the  National  Assembly,  he  remained  at  Versailles 
when  the  Assembly  declared  war  on  Paris.  He  supported 
the  Government  in  its  struggle  against  the  Commune.  His 
illusions  of  liberating  the  proletariat  through  cooperation  with 
the  aristocratic  and  progressive  sections  of  the  bourgeoisie 
ended  in  cooperation  with  the  brutal  and  reactionary  Junkers 
for  the  purpose  of  throttling  the  proletariat.  His  views  and 
sympathies  were  thereby  but  little  altered.  But  class  anta- 
gonisms are  stronger  than  pious  aspirations.  He  ivho  comes 
from  the  camp  of  the  bourgeoisie  and  docs  not  possess  suffi- 
cient courage  and  capacity  for  sacrifice  to  zvritc  definitely 
with  the  proletariat  and  destroy  the  bridges  behind  him — 
such  a  one  will,  despite  all  his  sympathy  for  the  prole- 
tariat, be  found  on  the  side  of  the  enemies  of  the  people, 
when  a  decisive  moment  comes."  These  are  the  words  of 
Karl  Kautsky,  w^ho  thus  showed  he  had  a  presentiment  of 
what  would  happen  to  himself.  The  quiet  comfortable 
study  is  the  bridge  which  unites  him  with  the  bour- 
geoisie. He  had  not  the  courage  to  tread  the  way  of  the 
martyr  a^  Rosa  Luxemburg  did,  and  we  therefore  see 
him  now  in  Versailles  as  the  successor  of  Louis  Blanc. 
And  when  he  says  that  the  greatest  virtue  of  the  Com- 
mune was  that  Socialists  did  not  prosecute  Socialists  we 
say  to  him :  "Your  praise  is  a  slander  alike  on  Majority  and 
Minority  of  the  Commune,  which  consisted  of  comrades-in- 
arms who  had  no  reason  to  mutually  persecute  one  another. 
You    falsify    history    unnecessarily.      Should   the    proletarian 


30 

revolution  in  Germany  succeed,  you  have  nothing  to  fear, 
Herr  Kautsky.  Although  impartial,  however  good  your 
intentions  may  be,  you  are  a  traitor.  You  are  so  harmless 
that  the  revolution  can  allow  itself  the  luxury  of  giving  you 
your  necessary  ration  of  fodder,  caterpillars  and  unfledged 
birds,  so  that  you  may  continue  to  nourish  yourself  after  your 
senile  fashion  ;  as  well  as  the  ink  and  paper  you  require.  But 
at  the  same  time,  we  will  have  our  revenge:  we  will  compel 
your  admirers  Scheidemann,  Hilferding,  etc.,  to  read  your 
works,  ^yhich  at  the  present  they  only  pretend  to  do." 


\ 

V 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE   SOFTENING  INFLUENCE  OF  DEMOCRACY   ON 

MANNERS. 

Herr  Kautsky  gives  two  examples  for  the  benefit  of  Ger- 
man readers  of  the  way  in  which  democracy  ha.s  influenced 
manners :  the  violent  dictatorship  of  the  Jacobins  which"  was 
bound  to  end  in  defeat  because  it  sought  to  realize  its  illu- 
sions by  force,  and  was  therefore  bound  to  mislead  and  bru- 
talize the  proletariat ;  and  against  this  dark  picture  he  places 
the  bright  and  moral  democratic  dictatorship  of  the  Commune 
of  1871  which  has  found  a  warm  place  "in  the  hearts  of  all 
who  long  for  the  liberation  of  mankind,  and  not  least  because 
it  was  thoroughly  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  humanity  which 
animated  the  working  class  of  the  nineteenth  century."  We 
have  shown  that  Kautsky's  presentation  is  a  mere  juggling 
trick.  The  Paris  Commune  of  1793  represented  no  prole- 
tarian dictatorship,  but  a  bourgeois  one ;  and  it  was  not 
"wrecked"  on  the  impracticability  of  proletarian  illusions,  but 
fulfilled  its  great  historical  mission — the  destruction  of  feu- 
dalism. The  proletarian  Commune  of  1871,  on  the  contrary, 
was  wrecked  after  a  two-months'  existence  by  the  confusion  of 
its  leaders  who  were  full  of  illusions,  and  did  not  understand 
that  the  fight  should  have  been  carried  beyond  the  walls  of 
Paris.  Tliat  zvhich  Kautsky  calls  tlic  spirit  of  Jiuinaiiity  7vas 
in  reality  the  iveakjicss  of  the  leaders  of  the  Coiminnie,  their 
irresolution  in  the  face  of  an  inexorable  enemy.  It  was  not 
the  contrast  between  violence  and  democracy  that  was 
expressed  in  the  Communes  of  1793  and  1871  because  the 
Commune  of  1793  stood  theoretically  on  the  grovmd  of  dem- 
ocracy as  much  as  the  Commune  of  1871,  and  the  Commune 
of  1871  forgot  democracy  in  practice  as  completely  as  that 
of  1793.     The  contrast  lies  in  the  strenuous  fight  of  a  class. 


32 

whose  time  has  come,  whose  domination  is  an  historical  neces- 
sity (the  Jacobin  bourgeoisie  were  in  this  position  in  1793) 
and  the  confusion  and  impotence  of  a  class  which  is  still 
incapable  of  exercising  domination  and  which  lacks  the 
resolution  to  fight  for  it  with  all  the  means  at  its  disposal 
(the  French  working  class  of  1871  was  in  this  condition). 
When  Kautsky  asserts  th'at  the  Commune  of  1871  has  found 
a  warm  corner,  thanks  to  its  spirit  of  humanity  in  the  hearts 
of  all  who  long  for  the  liberation  of  mankind,  the  old  man 
mistakes  his  own  womanish  heart  for  the  dauntless  one  of 
the  proletarian.  It  is  not  because  of  its  weakness  (which  he 
calls  humanity)  that  the  Commune  has  become  the  symbol  of 
proletarian  aspirations,  but  because  it  was  the  first  attempt 
of  the  proletariat  to  seize  power. 

What  this  spirit  of  "humanity"  is  which  it  is  pretended 
ruled  in  the  Commune  and  which  is  so  dear  to  his  heart, 
Kautsky  attempts  to  represent  in  a  lifeless  abstraction  in 
which  he  shows  savage  men  on  the  one  hand  and  peaceful 
men  on  the  other,  and  how  at  one  time  savagery,  and  at 
another  time  gentleness,  gained  the  upper  hand.  We  need 
not  delay  over  this  professorial  baulderdash  because  Kautsky 
never  rises  above  the  level  political  twaddle,  and  does  not 
even  clear  up  in  any  way  an  historical  event  by  showing  the 
action  of  gentleness  and  savagery.  Kautsky  becomes  more 
concrete  when  he  asserts  that  democracy,  which  clearly  shows 
the  proportional  strength  of  the  classes,  prevented  them  from 
rushing  blindly  into  the  conflict,  and  that  Marxism  has  the  same 
efifect  on  the  proletariat ;  and  that  the  proletariat,  thanks  to  the 
Marxist  explanation,  has  learned  that  victory  can  only  be  the 
result  of  a  gradual  process  of  growth.  "Socialists  are  always 
being  urged  to  undertake,  at  any  given  moment,  only  such 
tasks  as  could  be  accomplished  under  the  material  conditions 
and  with  the  relative  strength  of  classes,  which  obtained  at 
the  time.  If  everything  were  done  according  to  expert  opin- 
ion it  would  be  impossible  for  Socialists  to  fail  in  any  under- 
taking or  to  find   themselves  in  a  desperate  situation   which 


33 

would  force  them  to  resort,  contrary  to  the  spirit  of  the  pro- 
letariat and  of  SociaHsm,  to  mass  terrorism.  In  fact,  since 
Marxism  began  to  dominate  the  SociaHst  movement  till  the 
time  of  the  world  war,  that  movement  has,  in  almost  every- 
thing it  has  consciously  undertaken,  been  preserved  from  ser- 
ious defeat ;  and  the  idea  that  Socialism  could  be  accom- 
plished by  means  of  a  reign  of  terror  has  been  entirely  dis- 
carded by  its  adherents." 

So  says  the  professor  in  his  book.  Till  the  zvorld  war  dem- 
ocracy and  Marxism  had  shown  fine  results.  And  why  did 
not  democracy,  with  its  much  advertised  relatively  strong 
position  and  its  tendency  to  soften  manners,  prevent  this  most 
savage  form  of  destruction?  We  are  certain  that  Herr 
Kautsky  will  declare  triumphantly  that  the  war  came  about 
because  his  democratic  medicine  had  not  been  administered 
in  sufficiently  large  doses  to  the  HohenzoUern-s,  the  Haps- 
burgs  and  the  Romanofifs.  Apart  from  the  fact  that,  despite 
all  the  diplomatic  documents  which  tell  so  heavily  against 
these  dynasties,  no  Marxist  can  forget  the  v/hole  social  and 
political  history  of  the  pre-war  period,  the  will  of  the  "dem- 
ocracy" must  have  been  to  defend  by  all  mean;r,  even  the 
most  brutal,  the  interests  of  Entente  capital  against  the 
piratical  attempts  at  expansion  of  Imperial  Germany  if  the 
Hohenzollerns  and  the  Hapsburgs  succeeded  in  unchaining  the 
war.  And  does  Herr  Kautsky  know  nothing  of  the  ignoble 
ivar  of  the  Western  "democracies"  against  Soviet  Russia  and 
Soviet  Hungary F  It  is  evident  that  this  singular  Marxist  was 
still,  in  the  summer  of  1919,  full  of  illusions  about  the  readi- 
ness of  capital  to  forcibly  resist  the  attempts  of  the  prole- 
tariat to  liberate  themselves.  He  quotes  from  my  Foreword 
to  Bucharin's  pamphlet  as  follows :  "The  more  developed 
Capitalism  in  any  country  is  the  more  reckless  and  brutal  will 
be  its  defensive  fight,  and  therefore  the  bloodier  will  be  the 
proletarian  revolution  and  the  more  reckless  will  be  the  meas- 
ures by  means  of  which  the  victorious  working  class  will 
bring  the  defeated  capitalist  class  to  its  knees."     Referring  to 


34 

these  statements  Herr  Kautsky  declares  first  of  all  that  1 
"elevate  the  Bolshevist  practice  of  eighteen  months  to  the 
position  of  a  universal  law  of  development,"  and  that  I  ad- 
vocate the  practice  of  wrong  with  the  "recklessness  and  bru- 
tality of  the  capitalists'  war  of  defence."  "Of  such  brutality 
there  was  no  trace  in  November,  1917  in  Petrograd  or  Mos- 
cow, and  still  less  in  Budapesth  at  a  later  date."  These 
remarks  of  an  unpaid  agent  of  the  bourgeoisie  only  show  that 
he  notes  nothing  which  does  not  suit  himself  and  is  not  favor- 
able to  Capitalism.  He  says  nothing  of  the  hecatombs  of 
those  who  fell  during  the  Kerensky  regime  of  ^lensheviks 
and  Socialist  Revolutionaries — the  regime  so  much  after  his 
own  ideas — simply  because  Russian  Capitalism  shrank  from 
no  means  of  arresting  the  victory  of  the  proletariat.  He  has 
heard  nothing  of  the  November  rebellion  at  Moscow  when  the 
resistence  of  the  capitalist  guards  had  to  be  broken  in  more 
than  usually  heavy  fighting.  He  has  heard  -nothing  of  the 
13,000  sacrificed  by  the  Whites  in  Finland ;  he  has  heard 
nothing  of  the  forest  of  gibbets  erected  in  the  Ukraine  amidst 
the  stormy  applause  of  the  bourgeoisie  of  the  whole  of  Rus- 
sia ;  he  has  heard  nothing  of  the  thousands  of  proletarians 
slaughtered  in  the  Kuban  and  Donctz  districts ;  he  has  heard 
nothing  of  the  Kolchak  regime,  whose  deeds  of  horror 
have  been  reported  by  representatives  of  the  American  Gov 
ernment  like  Joshua  Rosett ;  lie  has  heard  nothing  of  the 
counter-revolutionary  plots  subsidized  by  the  Entente  which 
aimed  at  crippling  the  concrete  ccnstructive  work  of  the 
Soviets.  He  has  heard  nothing  of  the  thousands  of  dead 
piled  up  by  Herr  Noske  in  defence  of  German  Capitalism. 
He  has  heard  nothing  of  the  circulars  of  Churchill,  the  "dem- 
ocratic" War  Minister  of  luigland.  which  proves  that  the 
English  oligarchy  would  not  hesitate  a  moment  to  smother  in 
blood  any  attempt  of  the  proletariat  at  rebellion  ;  of  how  that 
oligarchy  even  during  the  sittings  of  the  Peace  Conference 
and  the  building  of  the  League  of  Nations,  caused  1000  people 
to  be  shot  down  in  Cairo  in  answer  to  native  demonstrations, 
and  so  treated  the  movement  for  independence  in  India  that 


35 

Rabindranath  Tagore,  certainly  no  savage  Bolshevik,  re- 
nounced the  knighthood  conferred  upon  him  by  the  King  of 
England,  and  declared  that  the  "severity  of  the  punishment 
inflicted  upon  the  unhappy  people  was  without  parallel  in  the 
history  of  civilized  nations  from  the  most  remote  period." 
This  appeared  in  the  "Manchester  Guardian"  on  7th  June, 
the  very  time  that  Merr  Kautsky  was  putting  the  hnishing 
touches  to  his  work  on  Terrorism.  Herr  Kautsky  has  net 
noticed  the  bloody  tight  of  M.  Clemenceau  against  the  work- 
men of  Paris  who,  on  the  First  of  May,  exercised  their  "dem- 
ocratic right"  to  demonstrate  for  Soviet  Russia.  And  we  are 
sure  that  if  after  the  enthusiastic  circulation  of  his  latest 
pamphlet  by  the  Anti-Bolshevist  League,  a  second  edition  ap- 
pears, we  shall  find  collected  all  the  stories  of  cruelty  which 
the  capitalist  Press  has  scattered  broadcast  about  Soviet 
Hungary,  but  nothing  about  the  thousands  of  proletarians 
whom  the  liungarian  rulers,  with  the  assistance  of  the  En- 
tente, ottered  up  as  a  sacrifice  in  the  holy  war  for  Capitalism 
and   democracy. 

His  whole  theory  of  the  "softening  influence  of  dem- 
ocracy on  manners"  conceals  a  simple  fact.  In  the  period 
from  1871  to  1918  there  was  no  attempt  in  Europe,  except 
in  Russia,  to  overthrow  bourgeois  society.  The  proletariat 
acconunodated  themselves  to  capitalist  rule,  and  sought  to 
improve  their  position  within  the  framework  of  Capitalism. 
Therefore,  apart  from  "little"  massacres  in  France,  as  in 
Italy,  .\ustria  and  North  America,  the  wantonness  of  the 
capitalist  ]:iolicemen  subsided,  because  the  bourgeoisie  could 
afford  to  renounce  the  use  of  cxccssiz'c  force  against  the  pro- 
letariat. In  the  colcnies,  where  the  proletarized  peasants,  in 
their  ignorance  of  Marxism,  ventured  to  rise  in  revolt,  they 
were  overthrown  according  to  all  the  rules  of  the  art  of  mil- 
itarism. The  softening  of  manners  consists  in  the  fact  that 
the  bourgeoisie  do  not  murder  the  w^orkers,  by  whose  sweat 
they  live,  because  it  is  not  only  unnecessary,  l)ut  would  even 
be  prejudicial  to  the  interest  of  the  profit-takers. 


36 

Marxism  simply  summarized  the  experience  of  the  work- 
ing classes  when  it  warned  them  against  rioting.  That  it  was 
their  sense  of  weakness  and  not  the  influence  of  Marxism 
that  was  the  deciding  factor  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  in 
countries  where  the  influence  of  Marxism  was  so  weak  as  in 
Italy,  France  and  England  there  was  no  serious  disturbance 
in  the  last  ten  years.  That  the  working  class  of  any  country 
did  not  attempt  to  seize  power  before  the  war,  and  that  it  was 
not  anywhere  brought  practically  face  to  face  with  the  ques- 
tion of  the  use  of  force,  was  due  to  objective  conditions 
which,  after  1871  and  still  more  after  1890,  originated  in  the 
period  of  the  consolidation  of  the  capitalist  States  and  their 
economic  expansion. 

Marxism  zms  never  really  practically  brought  face  to  face 
zvith  the  question  of  force,  and  the  merit  which  Herr  Kautsky 
claims  for  it  as  a  great  restraining  influence  exists  for  the 
most  part  only  in  his  imagination.  At  the  same  time  it  should 
not  be  denied  that  Marxism,  true  to  its  nature,  was  always 
careful  in  treating  of  the  use  of  force,  and  made  the  guiding 
star  of  its  policy  the  advice  to  comrades  to  refrain  from 
provocative  measures,  and  so  became  a  restraining  factor  in 
the  last  decade  where"  the  working  class  was  faced  with  the 
problems  of  violence  through  the  policy  of  Imperialism.  The 
world  war  has  made  the  problem  a  question  for  the  working 
class  movement.  Indeed  for  years  the  prophet  of  the  Second 
International  has  done  nothing  else  than  prove  to  this  gen- 
eration, which  has  grown  up  in  the  period  of  the  "peaceful 
development"  of  Capitalism,  any  real  sense  of  historical  devel- 
opment in  stormy  revolutionary  times  has  been  lost.  We  saw 
this  in  Kautsky's  treatment  of  the  greatest  bourgeois  revolu- 
tion, and  the  first  proletarian  revolution  of  the  epoch  of  so- 
called  "democracy" ;  we  shall  see  it  in  a  more  repulsive  fqrm 
in  his  treatment    of  the  great  Russian  Workers'  revolution. 


CHAPTER  V. 
THE  RUSSIAN  SODOM  AND  GOMORRHA. 

We  shall  begin  with  facts  that  cannot  be  contraverted. 
During  the  period  from  March  to  November,  1917,  the  rule 
of  the  Russian  bourgeoisie  underwent  a  continuous  process 
of  dissolution.  The  bourgeoisie  desired  to  carry  on  the  war; 
the  mass  of  peasants  and  workers  wanted  to  end  it,  at  what- 
ever cost.* 

*  When  Herr  Kautsky,  after  the  experiences  of  November,  1918, 
in  Germany,  raises  the  complaint  against  the  Bolsheviks  that  "they 
demanded  the  demobilization  of  the  army  without  caring  whether  it 
would  assist  the  German  military  autocracy  or  not."  he  is  merely 
accusing  the  Bolsheviks  of  doing  what  the  German  militarists  accuse 
his  party  of  doing.  "If  they  (the  German  military  autocracy)  did  not 
win  and  it  came  to  a  German  revolution,  the  Bolsheviks  were  certainly 
not  responsible  for  it" — which  merely  means  that  Herr  Kautsky  con- 
siders Marshal  Foch  to  have  been  the  father  of  the  German  revolution. 
Just  as  this  singular  Marxist  felt  in  the  German  revolution  like  one 
who  has  got  into  a  wild  riot  and  is  only  prevented  by  lack  of  courage 
from  declaring  it  to  be  a  misfortune,  so  we  see  in  his  assertion  that 
the  Russian  Revolution  had  not  a  determining  influence  on  the  out- 
break of  the  German  revolution,  merely  a  moving  demonstration  that 
Herr  Kautsky  is  sometimes  animated  by  Christian  feelings  and  seeks 
to  save  even  the  Bolsheviks  from  hell.  Therefore  greetings  to  Foch 
and  Wilson,  the  fathers  of  the  nation-liberating  German  revolution, 
and  to  Kautsky,  their  prophet.  But  joking  apart.  After  Herr  Kautsky 
has  established  his  contention,  on  one  page,  that  the  Bolsheviks  were 
innocent  of  exercising  any  influence  on  the  German  revolution,  he  says 
on  another  page:  "The  fact  that  a  proletarian  government  has  not 
only  assnined  power  but  has  been  able  to  maintain  it  for  nearly  two 
years  under  the  most  trying  circumstances  has  immensely  strengthened 
the  sense  of  power  of  the  proletarians  of  all  countries.  The  Bolsheviks 
have  thereby  done  a  great  deal  for  the  real  ivorld  revolution,  much 
more  than  their  emissaries,  who  have  done  as  much  injury  to  the  pro- 
Itarian  cause  as  the  revolutionaries  have  done  good."  So !  We  forgive 
Herr  Kautsky  for  his  sally  at  the  Bolshevik  "emissaries",  as  his 
opinions  of  their  actions  must  have  been  formed  from  police  reports, 
and  draw  attention  to  his  admission  that  Bolshevik  rule  in  Russia  has 
done  a  great  deal  for  the  actual  world  revolution.  Does  he  not  then 
consider  the  German  revolution  as  a  part  of  the  "real  world  revolu- 
tion"? This  contradiction  is  to  be  explained  by  the  fact  that  a  short 
memory  is  due  as  much  to  senility  as  to  extreme  malevolence. 


38 

The  peasants  wanted  to  seize  the  land  and  the  feudal 
estates.  The  bourgeoisie,  in  conjunction  with  the  Junkers, 
wished  to  avert  this.  The  workers  were  not  willing  to  endure 
the  rule  of  the  bourgeoisie  any  longer.  That  rule  had  ruined 
the  country,  and  they  were  convinced  that  it  could  not  build 
it  u])  again.  All  the  means  of  violence  in  the  hands  of  the 
bourgeoisie  were  unavailing  in  face  of  the  fact  that  ])role- 
tarians  and  peasants  were  in  a  majority  in  the  army,  and  that 
the  working  class  were  in  control  of  industrial  and  govern- 
mental centers.  In  November  1917,  the  power  of  the  bour- 
geoisie was  at  an  end.  IVIiat  could  the  Marxists — the  reprc- 
scntaz'tivcs  of  the  ivorking  class — do  in  this  process  of  the 
decay  of  capitalist  pozverf  The  friends  of  Kautsky,  the  Rus- 
sian Mensheviks,  who  considered  themselves  Marxians,  and 
were  so  described  by  Kautsky,  decided  by  an  overwhelming 
majority  that  "The  Russian  jH'oletariat  are  too  weak  to  as- 
sume power ;  they  must  cooperate  with  the  bourgeoisie  and 
support  their  rule  ;  and  as  the  bourgeoisie  of  Russia  did  not 
want  to  stop  the  war  they  demanded  of  the  proletariat  thai 
they  (the  proletariat)  should  remain  true  to  the  cause  of 
Entente  Capitalism.  Herr  Kautsky  has  never  fought  against 
this  policy,  but  has  discovered  tlial  Tseretclli  is  the  repre- 
sentative of  Marxism.  The  Russian  workers,  however,  hunted 
both  Kerensky  and  Tseretelli :  and  those  who  did  this  were 
the  overwhelming  majority  of  the  population.  A'O  "demo- 
cratic" government  in  the  i^'orld  ez'er  had  such  resolute  niasses 
of  people  behind  it  as  the  Bolsheviks  had  from  November, 
1917,  /(;  March,  1918.  No  historian  will  be  able  to  deny  that 
the  Bolsheviks  came  to  power  supported  by  the  immense  ma- 
jority of  the  people.  The  op]:)osite  impression  was  created  by 
the  Press  on  the  one  hand,  which  was  entirely  controlled  by 
the  small  sections  of  the  bourgeoisie  and  the  Intelligentsia; 
and  on  the  other,  l)y  the  circumstance  that  owing  to  the  lack 
of  suitable  political  apparatus  in  the  villages  and  to  the  incapa- 
city of  the  ]-)easants  to  cxjiress  their  will  sufficiently  clear,  the 
adherents  of  the  Constitutional  Asseml)ly  were  able  to  mis- 
represent the  true  state  of  afifairs.     What  it  meant,  however, 


39 

was  that  the  Bolsheviks,  after  the  ruin  of  the  old  army,  and 
before  the  building  up  of  the  Red  one — that  they,  with 
scarcely  any  armed  power,  held  out  in  February  and  March, 
1918.  That  the  dissolution  of  the  Constituent  Assembly  did 
not  cause  a  movement  to  be  set  on  foot  anywhere  against  the 
Bolsheviks  will  be  understood  only  by  those  who  reflect  that 
they  took  over  power  as  the  representatives  of  the  decisive 
majority  of  the  people. 

Power  therefore  fell  to  the  peasants  and  workers  by  a 
spontaneous  historical  process  which  broke  the  domination 
of  the  bourgeoisie  and  their  Menshevik  supporters.  The 
peasants  had  no  party  representation.  (The  Left  Socialist 
Revolutionaries  wished  to  represent  them  but  did  not.  They 
represented  part  of  the  Intellectual  section  which  had  not 
much  support  amongst  the  peasantry.)  The  proletariat,  who 
controlled  the  means  of  communication  and  the  towns,  and 
who  possessed  organs  of-  government  in  the  trade  unions,  and 
the  Soviets  of  the  Bolshevik  Party,  were  masters  of  the  situa- 
tion. What  ought  they  to  have  done  ?  Herr  Kautsky,  who 
was  opposed  to  the  taking  over  of  power  by  the  Russian  pro- 
letariat (he  conceals  this  in  his  book)  takes  these  facts  for 
granted  and  gives  the  Russian  proletariat  the  following  ad- 
vice :  "No  class  voluntarily  renounces  the  power  it  has 
acquired  no  matter  what  the  circumstances  may  have  been 
under  which  it  gained  its  dominating  position.  It  would  have 
been  foolish  to  have  demanded  such  renunciation  from  the 
Russian  and  Hungarian  proletariat,  on  account  of  the  backward 
condition  of  their  cotuitries.  But  a  Socialist  party,  informed 
by  the  real  Marxist  spirit,  ivoiild  have  accommodated  the 
problems  zvhich  it  placed  before  the  proletariat  for  the  time 
being  to  the  material  and  physical  conditions  prevailing,  and 
zvould  not  have  demanded  immediate  and  complete  socializa- 
tion in  such  a  country  of  undeveloped  capitalist  production 
as  Russia."  It  is  very  gracious  of  Herr  Kautsky  to  admit 
that  the  Russian  proletariat  cannot  give  up  its  power.  His 
pamphlet   of   last  year  contained   the  advice  to   the  Russian 


40 

proletariat  to  "restore  democracy".  Since  the  appearance  of 
that  pamphlet  over  a  year  ago  the  war  of  the  Entente  and  of 
the  Russian  counter-revolution  appears  to  have  taught  Herr 
Kautsky  that  if  the  Soviet  dictatorship  were  overthrown  its 
place  would  be  taken  by  the  dictatorship  of  the  counter-revo- 
lution with  Czarist  generals  at  its  head.  On  that  question 
he  says:  "You  have  attained  to  power  although  not  in  a 
democratic  way.  And  now,  since  the  fact  is  accomplished, 
use  your  power  in  a  rational  manner.  Accommodate  your- 
selves to  conditions;  do  not  attempt  imi)ossible  jumps;  leave 
complete  Socialization  alone:  it  is  impossible  in  a  country  so 
backward,  from  the  point  of  view  of  capitalist  conditions,  as 
Russia." 

What  is  "complete  Socialization"?  If  the  words  have  any 
meaning  at  all  they  can  only  mean  the  immediate  transference 
of  all  means  of  production  to  the  possession  and  control  of 
societyl'and  the  attempt  to  end  Capitalism  with  one  blow. 
It  shozvs  absolute  ignorance  of  the  real  course  of  the  devel- 
opment of  the  Russian  Revolution  for  anyone  to  assert  that 
the  Communist  Party  had  on  its  program  a  demand  for  such 
complete  Socialisation,  or  that  the  Workers'  Government  had 
sought,  on  doctrinaire  grounds,  to  realise  it.  The  Communist 
Party  fought  during  the  Kerensky  regime  for  the  control  of 
industry  through  Workers'  Councils  with  full  knowledge  of 
the  fact  that  the  proletariat  had  to  acquire  an  insight  into  the 
working  of  industry  —  to  learn  how  to  administer  in  order 
gradually  to  be  able  to  direct  the  industrial  machine.  When 
Kautsky  says  that  "therefore  the  proletariat  must  previously 
have  acquired  qualities  which  will  enable  them  to  direct  pro- 
duction when  they  take  possession  of  it,"  he  gives  a  very  sim- 
ple and  school-master  like  presentation  of  an  extremely  com- 
plicated process.  We  cannot,  of  course,  direct  a  process  we 
do  not  understand.  In  capitalist  society  not  only  the  mass  of 
manual  workers  in  the  factories,  but  even  the  intellectual  pro- 
letariat (technicians,  engineers,  etc.)  are  destitute  of  the 
ability  to  direct  industry.     Each  one  performs  a  part  of  the 


41 


work  :  they  are  all  little  wheels  in  an  intricate  mechanism. 
The  management  is  in  the  hands  of  a  few  directors  who  care- 
fully guard  their  secrets  (market  conditions,  etc.).  As  long 
as  capital  rules  it  seeks  to  exclude  the  proletarian  by  every 
means  from  the  direction  of  industry.  When  the  proletariat, 
however,  come  to  power,  without  the  capacity  to  manage, 
they  will  be  faced  with  the  necessity  to  do  so ;  not  only  be- 
cause the  struggle  for  power  wall  have  induced  in  them  the 
will  to  take  their  fate  in  their  own  hands  ,  but  also  because 
the  capitalists,  in  the  struggle  for  power,  will  injure  produc- 
tion by  measures  of  sabotage  and  all  other  means,  in  order  to 
make  the  position  of  the  proletariat  as  difficult  as  possi- 
ble. How  is  such  a  situation  to  be  met?  Kautsky,  Hilfer- 
ding  and  Bauer  believed  they  had  found  the  way  when 
they  consented  to  sit  on  royal  commissions  (on  which 
not  a  single  proletarian  had  a  place)  and  study  the  "Socializa- 
tion question."  They  had  first  of  all  to  ascertain,  in  conjunc- 
tion with  capitalist  representatives  and  learned  professors, 
how  coal,  fisheries,  etc.,  could  be  nationalized,  one  after 
another,  without  injury  to  "production."  Then  they  came  to 
the  conviction  that  the  occasion  of  sabotage  and  civil  war 
should  be  taken  from  the  capitalists  by  giving  them  handsome 
compensation.  Later,  when  matters  reach  a  crisis,  this  com- 
pensation can  be  gradually  taxed  out  of  existence.  Contem- 
poraneously with  the  gradual  nationalization  of  the  most 
highly  centralized  and  most  easily  conducted  industries,  their 
directing  boards  should  cease  to  be  of  a  purely  private  capital- 
ist nature  and  become  mixed  bodies,  having  representatives 
of  the  State,  the  consumers  and  the  workers,  besides  those  of 
the  capitalists.  A  two-fold  object  will  thus  be' secured:  in  the 
first  place,  the  workers  will  gradually  acquire  an  insight  into 
the  work  of  management ;  and  in  the  second  place,  the  con- 
tinuity of  production  \\\\\  be  secured.  This  is  the  standpoint 
from  which  Kautsky  criticizes  the  economic  policy  of  the  So- 
viet Government. 

Before  we  describe  the  Russian  development  let  us  ask  if 
this  viewpoint  has  been  proved  to  be  correct  in  Germany  and 


4^ 

German-Austria.  The  cookery  books  say  that  the  carp  hkes 
to  be  roasted  in  cream ;  and  Kautsky  and  Co.  apparently 
thought  that  the  bourgeoisie  hke  to  be  gradually  expropriated. 
But  they  must  have  been  convinced  that  the  bourgeoisie  pre- 
ferred not  to  be  expropriated  at  all.  They  (the  bourgeoisie) 
caused  Herr  Kautsky  and  other  professors  in  Berlin,  and  Herr 
Bauer  in  Vienna,  to  ''study"  the  tjuestion,  and  meanwhile 
they  set  about  building  up  again  their  power  which  had  been 
shaken  in  November,  and  the  question  of  Socialization  was 
settled.  If  the  Governmeni,  in  its  proposed  j^lan  for  Work- 
ers' Councils,  would  grant  a  place  to  a  representative  of  the 
workers  on  the  managing  body,  all  would  be  well ;  otherwise 
industrial  unrest  will  continue  and  the  htness  of  the  Govern- 
ment's proposals  will  not  be  tested.  The  workers  require,  not 
an  occasional  glimpse  into  the  work  of  management,  but  a 
daily  participation  in  the  direction  of  industrial  undertakings, 
and  only  in  this  way  can  they  really  master  the  conditions  and 
problems  of  the  direction  of  industry.  It  can  therefore  be 
seen  that  the  method  of  Kautsky  is  a  Utopian  one,  and  can 
be  compared  to  the  attempt  to  wash  the  skin  without  wetting 
it.  The  real  development  which  took  place  in  Russia,  and 
the  outlines  of  which  will  be  repeated  in  other  countries,  makes 
it  more  difficult  for  the  proletariat  to  learn  how  to  direct  pro- 
duction, and  makes  the  process  of  transition  from  Capitalism 
to  Socialism  much  more  painful.     What  ha])])encd  in  Russia? 

The  workers  demanded  control  of  industry  through  work- 
sht])  committees.  They  did  this  not  on  doctrinaire  grounds, 
nor  under  the  influence  of  Communist  propaganda,  but  from 
the  pressure  of  necessity.  It  frequently  happened  that  capi- 
talists wanted  to  close  their  factories,  as  the  rising  prices  of 
raw  materials,  macliinery.  and  lalior  jjower  ihrealened  their  war 
profits.  It  was  more  to  their  iiUerest  to  save  their  war  ])rohts 
and  to  temijorarily  paralyze  industry.  In  (Ahvv  cases  the 
capitalists  dislocated  industry  fcr  the  time  l)eii'.g,  in  order  to 
compel  the  workers  to  minimize  their  dcmnnds  ;  and  in  others 
again,  because  they  were  really  unable  to  obtain   raw  mater- 


tit 


43 

ials.  In  all  these  cases  the  workers  attempted  to  save  them- ;' 
selves  from  unemployment,  and  angrily  demanded  the  control 
of  industry  in  order  to  see  whether  the  suspension  were  really 
inevitable,  and  whether  their  demands  were  unreasonable, 
etc.  Control  was  gained  in  varying  measure  in  different  parts 
of  Russia,  but  everywhere  the  demand  was  fiercely  resisted, 
and  in  man}*  ])laces  the  workers  had  to  drive  the  factory  own- 
ers off  the  premises  in  order  to  gain  access  to  the  offices.  It  is 
clear  that  at  this  stage  of  development  neither  the  common 
interests  of  society  nor  those  of  the  workers  as. a  whole  were 
represented,  that  in  the  struggle  much  of  value  was  lost.  If 
Kautsky  in  his  pamphlet  on  Democracy  and  Dictatorship 
I)elieved  it  was  necessary  to  convert  Lenin  from  the  opinion 
that  the  seizure  of  factories  by  the  workers  in  these  factories, 
is  not  Socialism — that  merely  shows  the  professors  stupidity. 
.So  long  as  there  is  no  organ  which  represents  all  the  workers' 
interests  ;  so  long  as  the  fighting  organs  of  individual  prole- 
tarian groups  are  merely  in  process  of  formation — just  so  long 
is  it  impossible  for  the  object  of  the  struggle  to  be  common. 
In  the  same  vvay  the  destruction  of  value  which  every  group  of 
workers  attempted  to  carry  through  in  their  factories  was  im- 
l^iossible.  The  Soviet  Government,  when  it  attained  to  power 
in  November,  1917,  had  to  deal  with  the  struggle  of  each  group 
of  proletarians  against  its  own  particular  exploiters,  with  indi- 
vidualist tendencies,  and  with  the  necessity  to  escape  want. 
\\'hat  ought  it  to  have  done  when  confronted  with  such  prob- 
lems? 

In  the  first  ]3lace  there  was  the  danger  confronting  it 
that  the  ca|)italists  were  attempting  to  save  what  they  possibly 
could.  They  drew  their  money  frcm  the  banks,  and  endeav- 
ored to  transfer  the  stocks  of  goods  to  speculators.  It  had  to 
take  the  banks  in  its  own  hands,  to  declare  the  factories,  with 
all  their  stocks,  the  property  of  the  nation,  and  to  hand  their 
control  over  to  workers'  councils.  Then  it  had  to  prevent  the 
possibility  of  the  workers  in  individual  factories  selling  their 
raw  materials  and  finished  products  to  favorites  of  their  own./ 


44 

Only  after  that  was  it  possible  to  secure  the  general  prole- 
tarian organs  of  control  should  be  built,  and  control  of  indi- 

_^vjdual  factories  taken  out  of  the  hands  of  individual  work- 
ers' councils? '"Finally,   it  succeeded  in  introducing,  not  only 

"n:lie~^xtension  of  production  in  general,  but  also  the  direction 
in  the  interests  of  all,  of  the  production  of  everything  needed 
by  society.  Kautsky  has  not  the  smallest  idea  of  the  colossal 
work  that  has  been  accomplished  in  this  sphere  since  the  first 
days  of  the  November  Revolution.  The  struggle  for  peace, 
the  German  attack,  the  fight  against  the  operations  immedi- 
ately set  on  foot  by  the  militarist  counter-revolution,  the  spon- 
taneous demobilization  of  the  army,  the  building  up  of  the 
most  primitive  organs  of  State  power — these  problems,  which 
confronted  the  proletariat  and  their  party,  were  such  that  the 
ordinary  professor,  in  his  study  amongst  his  books,  cannot 
have  the.  slightest  conception  of.  But  from  Lenin's  speech  on 
the  problems  of  the  Soviet  power,  which  was  published  in 
April,  1918,  in  the  fifteenth  month  of  the  revolution,  every 
thinking  person  can  see  that  the  proposals  were  not  the  inven- 
tion of  a  man  living  in  the  clouds,  but  the  attitude  of  a  great 
proletarian  leader  to  the  problems  with  which  practically  the 
whole  of  Russia  was  already  grappling  in  the  first  weeks  of 
the  Revolution.  Lenin's  pamphlet  is  polemical  through  and 
through.  It  was  directed  against  the  Left  Wing  of  the  Com- 
munist Party  of  Russia,  which  was  grouped  round  the  perio- 
dical, the  "Communist"  published  in  Moscow  under  the  direc- 
tion of  Bucharin,  Radek,  Ossinski,  Lomov  and  Smirnov.  The 
whole  party  was  unanimous  on  the  point  that  the  question  of 
the  organization  of  production  was  the  most  important  domes- 
tic question  of  the  Revolution.  Both  wings  were  agreed  on  what 
Kautsky  now  serves  up  to  the  Communists  as  a  brand-new 
discovery  that  "without  the  cooperation  of  the  intelligentzia. 
Socialism  at  the  present  stage  of  production  cannot  be  accom- 
plished." The  Russian  Communists  have  never  told  the  work- 
ers that  they  could  direct  production  without  expert  knowl- 
edge, or  that  they  could  acquire  this  knowledge  so  rapidly 
that  they  would  be  able  to  do  without  the  intellectual  capital 


V 


45 

of  society.  If  the  workers  had  realized  this  they  would  not 
have  been  concerned  about  the  sabotage  of  the  petit-bourgeois 
Intellectuals.  Their  opposition  was  based  on  wholly  different 
grounds.  Lenin  proceeded  on  the  assumption  that  with  the 
defeat  of  Kaledin  the  period  of  the  open  counter-revolutionary 
resistance  of  the  bourgeoisie  was  ended,  and  that  we  could 
begin  to  hire  the  services,  as  directors  of  production,  of  the 
best  members  of  the  bourgeoisie — men  who  had  been  tested, 
and  with  whose  help  production  could  be  extended.  "We 
Communists  and  the  working  class  have  not  managed  factories 
anywhere.  We  must  first  learn,  and  we  can  learn  only  from 
the  directors  of  the  trusts.  If  we  pay  for  our  learning  we 
shall  get  back  our  money  a  thousand  fold,"  declared  Lenin. 
And  his  declaration  was  merely  the  result  of  earnest  con- 
versations with  a  number  of  prominent  industrial  experts  on 
the  formation  of  a  great  mixed  factory  in  the  Urals,  in  whose 
revenue  the  industrial  experts  should  be  interested  and  whose 
direction  should  be  in  the  hands  of  industrial  experts,  and  of 
representatives  of  the  State  and  of  the  workers.  All  the 
brand-new  clever  ideas  of  Kautsky  were  known  to  the  Com- 
munists of  Russia ;  and  even  the  Left  Wing  of  the  Communist 
Party  did  not  consider  Lenin's  proposals  as  an  infraction  of 
principle.  Nobody  thought  that  Communism  must  be  accom- 
plished at  one  bound,  or  that  in  the  Communist  society  the 
capitalist  elements  could  be  immediately  removed.  Lenin's 
plan  was  in  strict  accordance  with  principle,  but  the  Left 
Communists  considered  it  unworkable.  They  said  it  was 
wrong  to  adopt  it  till  the  open  resistance  of  the  counter-revo- 
lutionaries was  crushed  once  and  for  all.  The  bourgeoisie 
had  not  abandoned  this  resistance  and  therefore  it  was  impos- 
sible to  attract  their  leaders  to  the  work  even  if  economic  con- 
cessions were  granted  them  in  the  period  of  transition.  They 
would  either  refuse  to  cooperate  with  the  Soviet  Government 
in  the  hope  of  its  early  downfall  under  the  pressure  of  the 
European  counter-revolution,  and  in  the  desire  to  hasten  its 
downfall ;  or  they  would,  in  appearance,  make  a  compromise 
with  the   Soviet  Government  in  order  to  erect  the  positions 


46 

thus  conceded  into  bastions  to  be  used  later  against  the  work- 
ers' revohition.  The  Left  Communists  on  the  other  hand 
quite  agreed  with  Lenin  in  his  endeavor  to  create  as  favor- 
able conditions  as  possible  for  intellectual  workers-engineers, 
technicians,  etc. — in  order  to  gain  the  cooperation  of  these 
not  necessarily  counter-revolutionary  elements.  History 
(which  crowned  Lenin's  foreign  policy — the  policy  of  evasion 
rather  than  a  direct  collision  with  German  Imperialism  with 
success)  showed  that  his  attempt  to  promote  production  by 
attracting  capitalists  to  it.  was  at  that  time  impracticable.  The 
breathing  space  which  his  foreign  policy  gained  for  the  revo- 
lution allowed  it  to  organize  itself,  was  also  a  breathing-space 
for  the  counter-revolution,  w^hich,  under  the  shield  of  German 
Imperialism  in  the  L'kraine  and  under  the  protection  of  the 
Entente  in  Siberia,  organized  more  energetic  attacks  on 
Soviet  Russia.  Instead  of  effecting  compromises  with  the 
matadors  of  Capitalism  for  the  improvement  of  industry  the 
proletariat  State  had  to  fight  the  Terror  with  all  available 
means  in  order  to  protect  the  power  of  the  working  class — 
the  fundamental  condition  for  any  kind  of  Socialization.  But 
even  then  the  hard  facts  and  stern  necessities  had  to  1)e  reck- 
oned with  in  considering  methods  of  socialization,  quite 
Jndei)endently  of  abstract  combinations.  During  the  war 
Soviet  Russia  was  cut  off  from  the  ore  and  coal  of  the  Donetz 
basin  and  of  the  Caucasus,  from  the  naptha  of  Baku,  and 
since  the  Czecho-Slovakian  revolt,  from  the  metals  of  the 
Urals,  and  from  the  wool  of  Taskent.  This  situation  necessi- 
tated the  collecting  of  everv  available  atom  of  raw  material. 
Tt  necessitated  the  closing  of  factories  which  could  not  be 
worked  full  time,  and  the  handing  over  of  their  machines 
and  supplies  cf  raw  material  to  those  which  could.  It  necessi- 
tated tlie  suspension  of  iiroduction  of  articles  not  actually 
necessary,  and  even  of  many  indispensible  things,  and  the 
placing  of  industry  at  the  service  of  the  defense  of  the  Revo- 
lution. All  la]-ge  industry  had  to  be  vigorously  centralized 
in  the  hands  of  the  ]:)roletarian  State.  "Complete  Socializa- 
tion"— exclusive  of  handicrafts,  etc. — ims  not  the  result  of 


4? 

the  Communist  doctrine;  it  i^'cis  the  result  of  the  -c^'ar  of  de- 
fense of  the  Revolution. 

It  called  also  for  new  methods  of  management.  The  Rus- 
sian workers,  during  the  many  months  the  Revolution  has 
lasted,  have  learned  a  great  deal  about  industrial  attairs. 
Bourgeois  correspondents,  who  are  inveterate  enemies  of 
Socialism  and  who  insinuate  themselves  into  Soviet  affairs 
under  the  pretense  that  they  are  converts  to  Socialism  in  order 
that  they  may,  in  the  guise  of  impartial  observers  spend  a 
few  weeks  collecting  "pictures  of  life"  in  Soviet  Russia  after- 
wards to  be  hawked  about — these  people,  naturally,  have  no 
conception  of  the  work  which  has  been  performed  by  the 
inexperienced  Russian  proletariat  under  the  most  unfavor- 
able conditions.  Whoever  appeals  against  these  assertions 
to  the  speeches  of  the  Soviet  leaders  and  to  articles  in  the 
Soviet  Press,  forgets  the  aim  of  those  pessimistic  descriptions 
printed  in  the  Soviet  Press.  Soviet  Russia  is  waging  a  life- 
and-death  struggle.  It  can  win  only  if  it  exerts  all  its  strength, 
and  employs  every  means  of  defense.  The  leaders  and  the 
Press  must  denounce  every  weakness  of  the  organism  in  order 
to  call  forth  fresh  efforts.  Even  where  failure  is  due  to  ob- 
jective obstacles  and  difficulties  it  is  helpful  to  tell  the  masses 
that  all  these  hinderances  can  be  overcome.  While  the  bour- 
geoisie and  Social  Democratic  Press  of  Germany  endeavors 
to  conceal  every  form  of  corruption  practiced  by  the  State 
authorities,  the  Soviet  Press  ruthlessly  lays  bare  the  weak- 
nesses of  its  own  State  machinery.  Soviet  functionaries  are 
recklessly  attacked  by  it,  and  so  also  are  the  working  masses 
at  every  failure,  and  this  notwithstanding  the  fact  that 
Ossinski,  one  of  the  greatest  experts  in  economic  policy  in 
the  Soviet  Government  was  perfectly  right  when  he  pointed 
out  a  year  ago  that  production  depends  in  the  first  place  on 
objective  circumstances  and  is  the  result  of  a  continuously 
working  process.  W'herever  work  is  continually  interrupted 
through  want  of  fuel  or  raw  materials,  production,  recorded 
per  head  and  per  hour,  falls.    It  follows  then  that  the  masses 


4g 

are  permanently  undernourished,  and  must  continue  to  be  so, 
as  people  must  produce  war  necessities  in  the  first  place,  and 
can  only  produce  industrial  goods  on  the  very  smallest  scale 
to  be  exchanged  for  articles  of  food.  Finally,  the  most  ener- 
getic proletarians,  who  have  learned  how  to  manage  production, 
are  at  the  front,  and  are  the  soul  of  the  Red  Army.  In  this 
situation,  conditions  will  not  allow  of  waiting  until  the  capacity 
of  the  proletariat  for  directing  is  gradually  developed.  In 
this  process  of  the  strengthening  of  collective  independence 
and  of  the  rugged  feeling  of  collective  responsibility,  the 
most  intelligent  workers,  manual  as  well  as  mental  workers, 
must  be  invested  with  dictatorial  powers.  The  Kautskys  see 
in  that  the  bankruptcy  of  Communism,  a  renunciation  of  the 
Soviet  idea.  In  reality  these  transient  dictatorial  encroach- 
ments are  a  result  of  the  war  which  does  not  allow  the  Soviet 
Constitution  to  overcome  its  infantile  weaknesses,  or  to 
strengthen  the  independence  of  the  masses.  These  encroach- 
ments lead  to  the  overcoming  of  stagnation  only  because  they 
are  backed  by  the  Soviets,  which  have  the  confidence  of  the 
masses,  and  which  point  out  to  them  the  meaning  and  the 
necessity  of  such  measures. 

This  description  of  the  internal  development  of  the  Russian 
Soviet  Republic  shows  the  difficulties  with  which  it  has  to 
contend,  thanks  not  only  to  the  immaturity  of  the  Russian 
proletariat  and  not  only  to  the  preponderatingly  agrarian 
character  of  the  country,  but  also  and  primarily  to  the  fact 
that  the  Russian  Revolution  broke  out  before  the  proletariat 
of  the  capitalist  countries  rose  in  rebellion.  It  had  to  grapple 
not  only  with  its  own  counter-revolution  but  also  with  world 
capital  which  attempted  to  suppress  it  in  order  that  it  might 
again  have  a  supply  of  cannon  fodder  at  its  disposal,  and 
which  now  seeks  to  trample  upon  it  and  to  destroy  the  seat 
of  the  world  revolution.  The  shock  of  the  counter-revolu- 
tionary armies  of  world  capital,  the  plot  concocted  on  Russian 
soil  and  the  assistance  it  has  repeatedly  given  to  Russian 
capital,  which  always  held  out  the  hope  of  victory  over  the 
Russian  workers — all  these  circumstances  were  bound  to  make 


49 

the  struggle  of  the  Russian  Revolution  more  severe  in  char- 
acter. When  the  Russian  working  class  attained  to  power 
they  sought  to  avoid  the  infliction  of  cruelties  in  spite  of  the 
savage  persecution  to  which  they  had  been  subjected  during 
the  Kerensky  regime.  The  revolutionary  workers  shielded 
with  their  own  bodies  the  arrested  Ministers  of  Kerensky, 
they  pardoned  counter-revolutfonary  generals,  because,  in- 
structed by  the  Communist  Party,  they  understood  that  the 
proletarian  revolution  did  not  mean  the  removal  of  indi- 
viduals, but  the  alteration  of  social  conditions.  When  savage 
reprisals  took  place  they  were  the  work  of  peasant  masses 
clad  in  soldier's  uniforms,  and  not  of  the  organized  workers. 

Except  for  the  fight  in  Moscow  the  Revolution  was  carried 
through  practically  peacefully.  The  political  Terror  was  in- 
stituted on  a  large  scale  zvhen  the  Russian  bourgeoisie  under 
the  protection  of  German  bayonets  in  the  Ukraine,  began  to 
advance  against  the  zvorkers  with  fire  and  szvord;  when  in 
Central  Russia  in  the  spring  of  1918  they,  concealed  behind 
the  German  Government,  and  with  the  assistance  of  its 
officials,  sought  to  remove  substantial  portions  of  the  im- 
poverished Russian  people's  property  to  Germany ;  when, 
with  English  and  French  money  they  began  to  hatch  plots 
and  organized  attempts  on  the  lives  of  the  leaders  of  the 
Russian  proletariat ;  and  when,  finally,  they  began  to  arm  all 
armies  of  mercenaries  in  Siberia  and  in  tke  Caucasus  against 
Soviet  Russia.  This  is  not  the  place  to  repeat  the  details 
of  the  savage  White  Terror  which  can  be  gleaned  from  the 
report  of  Joshua  Rosset,  the  representative  of  the  American 
Red  Cross  in  Siberia.  Kautsky  declares  that  when  the  leaders 
of  the  counter-revolution  resorted  to  terrorist  methods  they 
were  true  to  themselves,  "because  to  them  human  life  was  so 
cheap  as  to  be  merely  a  means  of  furthering  their  own  aims." 
"They  do  not  renounce  their  principles  when  they  sacrifice 
human  life  in  order  to  retain  their  power,  but  the  Bolsheviks 
can  only  do  this  tvhen  they  become  untrue  to  the  principle 
of  the  sacrcdness  of  human  life  which  they  themselves  have 
exalted  and  vindicated."     Herr  Hilferding,  the  junior  repre- 


50 

sentative   of   the  firm  of   "castrated  Marxism,"   now   repeats 
with  his  master  that  terrorism  is  absolutely  immoral ;  and  the 
brave    George    Ledebour    foams    at    the    mouth    against    the 
immorality    of    the    Bolshevist    Terror.       George    Ledebour, 
in    defense    of    himself,    can    point    to    the    fact    that    in    thv 
Kerensky    epoch    he    protested    energetically    at    the    Stock- 
holm  conference    of    the   Zimmerwaldians     against    the    ter- 
rorism   of    the    Kerensky    Government.       Messrs'    Kautsky 
and   Co.    cannot   even   plead    humanitarian   confusion   in    ex- 
temiation  of  their  conduct.     They  were  silent  while  Russian 
soldiers,   peasants   and   workers   were   driven    to  fight   in   the 
interests  of   Entente  capital  with  all  the  means  of  the  most 
savage  terrorism.     They  were  silent  when  the  Kerensky  Gov- 
ernment  threw-    into   prison   the    revolutionary    peasants   who 
had   organized    themselves    to    expropriate    the    large    land- 
owners ;  when  it  sent  punitive  expeditions  against  the  peasants 
and  for  the  defense  of  the  landlords  ;  when  it  ruthlessly  per- 
secuted thousands  of  workers  on  account  of  their  Bolshevik 
propaganda ;    when  it  suppressed  the  Bolshevist  Press ;    when 
it  persecuted   leaders  of  the   Russian    proletariat  as   German 
spies.     The  apostles  of  morality  only  discovered  the  absolute 
immorality    of    terrorism    when    the    question    arose    whether 
the  proletariat  should,  with  tooth  and  nail,  defend  their  power 
and    endeavor    to    secure    the   possibility    of    freedom.      Then 
these  Marxians,  who  had  hitherto  taught  the  proletariat  that 
there  was  no  such  thing  as  absolute  truth,  and  no  absolute 
moral   law,   discovered   that   the   proletariat   had  the   right   to 
conquer  when  they  cculd  do  so  without  endangering  human 
life.     If  they  are  so  solicitous   for  human  life  why  do  they 
see  only  the  sacrifice  of  the  Extraordinary  Commission,  and 
not  the  masses  who  must   starve  because  the  Russian  bour- 
geoisie, with  the  help  of  Entente  capital,  destroyed  the  railway 
bridges  in  order  to  disorganize  traffic ;  because  the  Russian 
bourgeoisie  begin   an   offensive   against   Soviet   Russia   which 
has   no   prospect   of    military    success   but   can   only   hope   to 
destroy  the  harvests  so  as  to  compel  the  masses  to  capitulate 
through  hunger.     But  if  the  accusation  of  immorality,  which 


51 

the  "moral"  Kautskys,  Hilferdings  and  Ledebours  bring  for- 
ward against  the  young  struggling  working  class,  is  non- 
sensical, it  is  not  thereby  stated  that  terrorism  answers  the 
purpose,  what  views  it  has,  or  what  aims  it  pursues. 

It  is  clear  that,  in  the  long  run,  even  the  most  severe  ter- 
rorism would  not  have  been  able  to  save  the  Russian  Revo- 
lution if  Capitalism  had  emerged  victorious  from  the  crisis 
of  the  war  and  consolidated  itself.  Then  the  counter-revolu- 
tion, while  compelling  Soviet  Russia  to  produce  only  for  war 
purposes,  could  have  achieved  its  own  ends.  If  the  Soviet 
Republic  cannot,  within  a  reasonable  space  of  time,  establish 
its  production  on  a  peaceful  basis  so  as  to  be  able  to  give  its 
industrial  products  to  the  peasants  in  exchange  for  food,  it 
is  clear  that  the  weaker  sections  of  the  w^orkers,  will,  even 
in  the  midst  of  victorious  campaigns,  be  destroyed.  But  this 
very  possibility  must  act  as  an  incentive  on  every  West  Euro- 
pean Socialist,  to  whom  Socialism  is  not  an  empty  term,  to 
make  the  most  strenuous  efforts  to  get  the  working  class  of 
the  West  to  engage  in  the  fight  against  Capitalism,  instead  of 
inviting  the  Russian  revolutionaries  to  lay  down  their  arms 
before  the  counter-revolutionaries  in  the  name  or  human 
right.  When  Kautsky,  in  his  book  of  last  year  on  Democracy 
and  Dictatorship,  expressed  the  hope  that  the  Bolshevist  dic- 
tatorship in  Russia  would  be  dissolved  by  democracy,  it  must 
have  been  evident  not  only  to  the  Russian  Mensheviks,  but 
also  to  their  stupid  Western  imitators,  that  if  the  Russian 
workers'  dictatorship  with  its  Terror  collapsed,  its  place 
would  be  taken,  not  by  democracy,  but  by  the  White  Terror 
of  Kolchak  and  Denikin.  Compelled  to  choose  betzveen  the 
proletarian  dictatorship  zcith  its  terrorism,  and  the  naked  ter- 
rorism of  the  Whijc  dictatorship,  these  people  implore  the 
Russian  proletariat  to  be  gentle  and  good  and  prepared  to 
assist  others,  and  promise  that  they  will  erect  a  monument  to 
the  Russian  proletariat  inscribed  as  follows :  "Ye  fallen 
heroes,  assassinated  by  the  capitalist  Terror,  because  it  was 
a  noble  thing  to  obey  the  dictates  of  humanity ;  to  have  lived 


52 

for  the  most  part  on  a  vegetable  diet,  supplemented  now  and 
then  with  smaller  animals,  caterpillars,  worms,  reptiles,  and 
even  unfledged  birds ;  to  have  refrained  from  killing  any 
large  mammal  in  order  to  eat  it.  In  this  ye  resembled  our 
ancestor,  the  ape.     Honor  to  his  memory !" 

Now,  the  Russian  proletariat  will  not  take  this  advice,  and 
the  only  good  that  can  come  out  of  it  is  that  it  will  enable  the 
proletariat  to  see  that  the  Hilferdings  and  the  Ledebours,  are 
in  the  last  resort,  disciples  of  Scheidemann.  | 


CHAPTER  VI. 

EITHER.  .  .OR.  .  . 

What  significance  has  the  question  of  terrorism  for  the 
West  European  working  class  ?  Kautsky,  Otto  Bauer  and 
Hilferding  seek  to  account  for  terrorism  (which  they  only 
discover  with  the  workers'  revolution)  by  the  fact  that  the\ 
working  class  in  Russia  is  only  a  small  percentage  of  the 
population.  That  is  the  sole  reason,  they  say,  why  the  work- 
ing class  must  endeavor  to  maintain  itself  in  power  by  means/ 
of  violence.  The  European  proletariat  will  not  need  to  do'f 
this  because  they  constitute  the  majority  of  the  population/ 
When  they  (Kautsky,  etc.)  inveigh  against  the  Russian  Bol- 
shevist terror  they  do  so  on  the  ground  that  it  is  their  duty 
to  cleanse  the  Socialist  escutcheon  from  all  the  blood  with 
which  Bolshevism  has  bespattered  it.  But  the  eagerness,  nay, 
the  venom,  with  which  Kautsky.  Strobel,  Hilferding  and 
Ledebour  treat  the  matter  shows  that  for  them  there  is  more 
at  stake  than  the  question  whether  these  great  representatives 
of  Socialism  could  accept  responsibility  for  the  poor  little 
Russian  workers'  revolution.  When  the  Russian  workers' 
revolution  won  in  November,  1917,  and  when,  to  the  workers 
of  all  lands  from  Berlin  and  Vienna  to  New  York  and  San 
Francisco,  the  flag  of  the  Soviets  appeared  as  the  one  under 
which  in  future  they  would  fight  and  conquer,  the  wavering 
Socialist  elements  were  concerned  chiefly  with  one  aspect  of 
the  struggle — the  idea  of  the  proletarian  dictatorship.  The 
Strobels  and  the  Kautskys  vied  with  the  avowed  lackeys  of 
the  bourgeoisie  in  persuading  the  proletariat  that  Marx  had 
understood  dictatorship  to  mean  merely  the  domination  of  the 
proletariat  after  they  had  legally  won  the  majority  of  the 
people  to  Socialism ;  after  they  had  pledged  themselves  by  law 
to  compensate  the  brave  bourgeoisie  to  the  end  of  their  lives 


54 

and  of  those  of  their  children  for  taking  from  them  the  inher- 
ited right  of  exploiting  the  workers ;  and  after  they  had 
secured  to  the  bourgeoisie  their  life  annuities,  to  assure  them 
of  an  opportunity  of  organizing  against  the  proletariat  under 
the  flag  of  democracy.  But  nevertheless  the  idea  of  the  work- 
ers' dictatorship  made  great  headway  amongst  the  working 
classes  of  Western  Europe  and  captivated  always  greater 
masses  of  the  proletariat,  not  only  because  of  the  influence  of 
the  struggle  of  the  Russian  Soviet  Republic,  which  had  found 
a  warm  place  in  the  hearts  of  the  proletariat  of  the  whole 
world,  but  also,  and  chiefly,  because  of  the  experience  the 
working  class  of  all  lands  had  had  of  the  dictatorship  of  the 
bourgeoisie.  After  the  workers  of  Germany  in  November. 
1918,  allowed  themselves  to  be  led  astray  by  the  Haases, 
Strobels,  Hilferdings,  Dittmanns  and  Kautskys  who  delivered 
them  over  to  the  fallen  power  of  the  bourgeoisie,  they  (the 
workers)  soon  recognized  bourgeois  democracy  by  its  fruits. 
Between  the  National  Assembly  and  the  Councils  there  was 
no  fundamental  antagonism,  asserted  Haase,  the  leader  of 
the  Independents  at  the  first  Congress  of  Councils,  and  he 
recommended  the  convening  of  National  Assembly.  The 
bourgeoisie  pointed  out  to  the  workers  that  there  was  only 
one  alternative.  In  order  to  get  the  real  power  in  their  hands, 
in  order  to  set  the  seal  of  approval  of  ihe  National  Assembly 
on  the  bourgeois  power,  they  began  immediately  after  the 
Congress  to  suppress  the  workers,  to  deprive  the  Workers' 
Councils  of  their  rights,  and  to  disarm  the  proletariat.  In  the 
period  from  January  to  March  the  workers'  faith  in  the  mir- 
aculous power  of  democracy  and  of  the  National  Assembly 
vanished,  and  they  declared  vehemently  for  the  dictatorship 
and  for  the  domination  of  the  Councils.  At  the  March  con- 
gress of  the  Independent  Social  Democratic  Party  of  Ger- 
many, Haase  and  Hilferding  succeeded,  with  great  difficulty. 
in  making  the  workers  believe  that  by  bringing  pressure  to 
bear  on  the  l)ourgeoisie  in  the  bourgeois  National  x\ssembly, 
they  could  get,  if  not  control  by  the  Councils,  at  least  joint 
control,   and  could   secure  the  political  initiative.     The  diief 


55 

enemies  of  the  Cquncils  did  not  venture  into  the  independent 
Press.  Only  in  bourgeois  papers  and  books,  pubHshcd  by 
bourgeois  firms  did  Kautsky  and  Strobel  dare  to  combat  the 
idea  of  the  proletarian  dictatorship.  Month  by  month  their 
position  in  the  party  became  more  hopeless  and  finally  there 
remained  nothing  for  the  opponents  of  the  proletarian  dicta- 
torship lo  do  but  to  concentrate  on  a  dictatorship  zvliicli  is  no 
dlctatorsliip. 

Rudolf  Hilferding,  the  old  counselor  of  Scheidemann  and 
Rbert,  a  man  who  learned  Radicalism  in  theory  from  the 
Austrian  school  of  compromise,  the  half  truth  and  the  whole 
lie.  gave  the  signal.  At  the  September  Conference  of  the 
Independents  he  pronounced  for  dictatorship,  but  for  dicta- 
torship of  such  a  kind  as  would  do  no  harm  to  the  bour- 
geoisie, a  dictatorship  which  is  like  a  knife  without  a  handle. 
He  pronounced  for  dictatorship  while  rejecting  the  theory 
on  principle.  He  declared  that  terrorism  was  not  only  ethic- 
ally wrong,  but  that  in  Western  Europe  it  was  not  even 
necessary  because  there  the  working  class  possess  a  majority 
and  can  therefore  rule  without  the  exercise  of  violence.  All 
the  confused  and  opportunist  elements  eagerly  welcomed  this 
solution.  It  ofifered  a  way  of  escape  for  these  elements  of 
the  Independent  Party  who,  on  account  of  their  social  posi- 
tion, are  not  able  to  break  definitely  with  the  bourgeoisie. 
Some  of  them,  who  are  well  ofif  themselves,  are  instinctively 
drawn  towards  the  bourgeoisie  while  others  are  accustomed 
to  the  peaceful  lives  of  Parliamentary  leaders,  and  will  protest 
and  demonstrate,  but  will  not  risk  anything.  This  solution 
was  eagerly  accepted  by  all  those  elements  who  came  over  to 
Socialism  because  bourgeois  democracy  was  bankrupt.  The 
watchword,  "Dictatorship  without  Terrorism",  was  at  once 
the  slogan  of  the  political  authorities  and  that  of  those  who 
were   suffering   from   humanitarian   and    democratic    illusions. 

Not  one  of  them  cculd  take  his  stand,  regardless  of  conse- 
quences, upon  the  platform  of  the  proletariat  and  fight  their 
fight  as  demanded  by  the  situation.     Without  considering  the 


56 

conditions  of  the  question  they  will  allow  the  proletariat  to 
wade  through  a  capitalist  sea  of  mud  and  blood  and  still 
expect  them  to  remain  as  white  and  spotless  as  Antigone.  The 
watchword,  "Dictatorship  without  Terrorism",  is  the  last 
refuge  of  the  bourgeoisie. 

In  the  first  place,  hozv  shall  we  come  to  supreme  pozver? 
Shall  we  be  able  to  definitely  establish  the  fact  that  we  have 
a  majority  of  the  people  behind  us,  even  when  we  have?  It 
is  obvious  that  that  is  almost  impossible.  When  the  time  is 
ripe  for  the  domination  of  the  working  class  the  demand  will 
be  expressed  in  the  sharpest  revolutionary  fight  in  which  the 
bourgeoisie,  as  well  as  the  proletariat,  will  put  forth  all  their 
efforts,  and  in  which  democratic  forms  will  be  swept  away. 

The  bourgeoisie  will  oppose  the  White  Terror  to  the  coming  . 
proletarian  dictatorship.  They  will  suppress  the  workers' 
Press,  dissolve  the  workers'  organizations  and  attempt 
to  provoke  the  proletariat  into  premature  outbreaks  in 
order  to  overthrow  them.  It  will  scarcely  be  possible 
to  ascertain,  by  any  kind  of  elections,  which  side  has 
the  majority.  And  it  is  doubtful  if  the  class-conscious  pro- 
letariat, striving  for  the  mastery,  zi'ill  ever,  at  any  time 
before  accession  to  pozver,  have  the  majority  of  the  people  be- 
hind than.  The  workers,  as  long  as  Capitalism  lasts,  will 
not  only  be  under  the  influence  of  the  bourgeois  Press,  and 
bourgeois  education  and  inherited  superstitions,  but  they  zvill 
also  be  impressed  by  the  pozver  of  the  bourgeoisie.  The  most 
oppressed  or  the  most  mentally  active  elements  of  the  work- 
ing class  will  free  themselves  from  these  influences  in  the 
process  of  revolution.  As  for  the  great  majority  of  the  pro- 
letariat, the  belief  in  their  own  strength  and  in  their  own 
capacity  to  rule  will  grow  only  through  the  acts  of  the  revo- 
lutionary workers'  government,  through  their  own  struggles 
and  their  own  experiences.  But  even  if  the  Communists  ad- 
vance guard  of  the  proletariat  were  to  gather  a  majority  and 
if  it  were  mathematically  established — even  then  it  zvould  be 
too  much  to  expect  that  the  bourgeoisie  zvould  submit  to  the 


5r 

majority.  The  bourgeoisie,  as  a  rule,  will  not  submit:  they 
ivill  have  to  be  overthrozvn.  As  long  as  there  are  Capitalist 
States  as  well  as  Socialist  ones  the  bourgeoisie  will  always 
nourish  the  hope  that  they  will  one  day  conquer  the  prole- 
lariat,  and  once  overthrown,  they  will  begin  anew  to  organize 
resistance.  As  long  as  the  process  of  revolution  is  still  unfin- 
ished, as  long  as  no  Socialist  order  appears  in  the  place  of  the 
capitalist  chaos — order  zvhich  will  sliozv  to  the  masses  by  con- 
crete acts  the  benefits  of  the  conditions  resulting  from  the 
neiv  rule — so  long  will  the  bourgeoisie  find  elements  amongst 
the  wavering  and  vacillating  portions  of  the  proletariat  and 
the  petit-bourgeoisie  ivkich  will  allow  themselves  to  be  per- 
suaded that  under  bourgeois  rule  they  would  be  spared  all  the 
difficulties  and  hardships  inseperable  from  the  struggle.  In 
the  West,  in  the  developed  capitalist  countries  where  the  bour- 
geoisie are  best  organized,  and  where  they  have  a  large 
measure  of  support  amongst  the  aristocracy  of  labor  (as  was 
the  case  in  Russia,  by  the  way)  the  fight  for  power  will  obvi- 
ously be  much  keener  than  it  was  in  Russia,  as  the  proletariat 
will  have  to  oppose  to  the  relatively  greater  might  of  the 
bourgeoisie  a  still  more  decisive  measure  of  violence. 

In  these  circumstances  the  talk  of  dictatorship  without 
terrorism  is  nothing  more  than  an  attempt  to  put  the  prole- 
tariat ofif  their  guard,  the  only  result  of  which  would  be  that 
they  would  approach  the  fight  unconscious  of  the  danger  and 
therefore  would  the  more  easily  fall  a  prey  to  the  bourgeoisie. 

However,  we  may  console  ourselves  with  the  thought  that 
the  working  class  is  not  sentimental,  and  that  it  will  meet 
hard  facts  with  hard  facts.  The  working  class,  like  every 
other  aspiring  class  which  represents  the  future  of  humanity, 
and  which  gathers  in  itself  all  aspirations  after  what  is  good 
and  great,  is  fundamentally  generous  and  for  a  time  easily 
lulled  to  sleep,  and  very  easily  when  the  sleeping  draught  is 
administered  by  people  in  whom  it  trusts,  and  who  speak  to 
it  as  supporters  of  the  dictatorship.  The  danger  threatens  the 
working  class  that  it  will  attain  to  power  through  the  machina- 


58 

tions  of  people  who  will  on  no  account  take  a  resolute  stand, 
whose  just  and  honorable  feelings  impair  their  power  to  grasp 
realities,  and  who,  at  a  time  when  violence  is  required,  will 
shrink  from  it.  and  cause  much  greater  sacrifices  by  this  neg- 
lect than  would  otherwise  be  necessary. 

The  danger  even  threatens  the  proletariat  that  they  will 
suffer  serious  temporary  defeats  through  the  machinations  of 
unrelialjle  leaders.  Those  who  are  acquainted  with  the  his- 
tory of  the  Soviet  Governments  of  Hungary  and  Munich 
know  that  the  disintegrating  influence  exercised  by  romantic 
youths  (of  all  ages)  played  an  important  part  in  bringing 
about  their  downfall ;  and  therefore  the  influence  wdiich 
Kautsky's  book  still  exercises  on  some  cf  the  leaders  of  the 
Independents  is  a  danger  signal,  ft  warns  the  proletariat 
against  accepting  mere  verbal  declarations.  The  independent 
working  masses  know  that  it  is  not  enough  to  extort  from 
their  leaders  a  confession  in  favor  cf  dictatorship,  that  it  is 
necessary  to  have  at  the  points — boxes  on  the  proletarian  rail- 
way system,  representatives  of  tJie  revolutionary  proletariat 
whose  eyes  calmly  perceive  facts  and  zchose  hands  do  not 
tremble.  A  Soviet  dictatcrshi])  with  leaders  who  have  not 
definitely  broken  mentally  with  the  capitalist  world,  and  who 
are  not  prepared  to  do  w^hat  hard  necessity  demands — such  a 
dictatorship  can  only  be  a  dictatorship  in  appearance,  and  that 
means  certain  defeat.  The  proletariat  do  not  long  for  blood- 
shed ;  they  knew  from  historical  experience  that  violence  or 
the  Terror  never  at  any  time  nor  place  created  new  conditions 
of  production,  that  it  never  produced  a  new  system  of  society 
where  econcmic  development  had  not  prepared  the  ground 
for  it.  The  proletariat  know  that  violence  does  not  produce 
bread  or  coal,  and  dov-:^  not  build  railways.  Thev  know  that  for 
that  willing  labor  i)\  millions  is  necessary,  but  they  also  know 
that  if  they  want  coal  for  tluir  houses  and  foundries  they 
must  first  of  all  win  the  coal  mi)ies  in  violent  rcvohitionary 
fighting,  and  secondly  that  they  must  watch  over  them,  szvord 
in  hand,  to  prevent  them  being  destroyed  by  bands  of  White 


59 

Guards.  The  proletariat  know  that  they  cannot  compel  the 
peasants  to  plow  the  fields  ;  they  know  that,  in  the  long  run 
the  peasants  will  only  do  that  where  they  recognize  that  they 
will  have  better  conditions  under  the  rule  of  the  proletariat 
than  under  that  of  the  bourgeoisie.  But  it  is  essential  that, 
by  the  overthrow  of  the  bourgeoisie  the  peasants  should  be 
cured  of  their  belief  that  the  bourgeoisie  alone  are  able  to 
govern ;  and  they  will  discard  this  belief  not  only  through  the 
fight  against  the  bourgeoisie,  but  in  many  cases,  even  by  the 
fight  against  the  rich  peasantry.  Whoever  has  studied  the 
history  of  revolutions,  n(jt  from  books  like  Kautsky's,  but 
from  great  and  original  if  also  reactionary  bourgeois  sources, 
will  have  no  hesitation  in  agreeing  with  Ranke  when  he  says 
in  his  history  of  the  English  Revolution  that  great  things  must 
always  be  shaped  by  a  strong  zmll.  The  meaning  of  terrorism 
in  the  revolution  is  that  the  revolutionary  class,  even  in  the 
hour  of  greatest  danger,  shrinks  from  nothing  in  order  to 
accomplish  its  zvill,  and  defends  itself  with  all  its  might. 

The  working  class  will  only  acquire  this  will  after  long 
experience,  many  struggles,  defeats  and  victories.  As  a  sub- 
ject class,  descended  from  the  subject  sections  of  the  pre- 
capitalistic  historical  period,  as  a  class  in  whose  veins  flows 
the  blood  of  those  accustomed  for  centuries  to  obey  the  will 
of  others,  the  working  class  today  Jias  not  that  iron  ivill  to 
dominate  which  has  been  so  highly  developed  by,  for  exam- 
ple, the  Prussian  Junkers  and  the  English  bourgeoisie.  There- 
fore the  fight  must  be  all  the  keener  against  all  those  elements 
which  are  led  to  dissipate  their  energies  by  wavering,  vacillat- 
ing and  carelessness.  The  proletariat  who  strive  for  equality 
of  all  human  beings,  have  no  longing  for  dictatorship  with 
terrorism,  and  do  not  themselves  choose  that  tactical  course. 

As  soon  as  the  situation  permits  of  it  they  will  forego  it.  In 
the  process  of  the  Socialist  revolution  they  will  always  seek 
to  discover  whether  this  or  that  section  of  the  bourgeoisie  can 
be  induced  to  join  with  them  in  the  exercise  of  power,  whether 
the  circle  of  those  possessing  equal  rights  is  not  capable  of 


60 

extension,  and  they  will  greet  the  day  with  ringing  of  bells 
and  shouts  of  joy  in  which  all  chains  will  disappear,  in 
which  an  end  will  be  put  to  all  forms  of  oppression,  in  which 
the  long  standing  disgrace  of  exploitation  of  man  by  man 
will  be  driven  from  the  world  and  consigned  to  oblivion ;  and 
that  day  of  the  society  of  free  and  equal  brothers  will  come 
all  the  faster  the  larger  the  number  is  of  bourgeois  Intellec- 
tuals who  realize  that  the  domination  of  the  bourgeoisie  is 
gone  forever,  and  that  it  is  their  duty  to  take  their  stand  on 
the  side  of  the  life  that  is  now  struggling  into  existence.  The 
greater  the  assistance  the  working  masses  receive  from  the 
brain  workers  the  easier  will  it  be  to  consummate  the  organ- 
ization of  the  new  life,  the  more  difficult  will  be  the  fight  of 
the  counter-revolutionary  elements  against  them,  and  the  less 
will  be  the  necessity  of  employing  terrorist  measures.  A 
vacillating  policy  on  the  part  of  the  bourgeoisie  will  not  re- 
move this  necessity.  The  policy  of  the  proletariat  in  this 
question  is  indicated  in  the  announcement  of  the  Chartists 
who  declared :  "We  will  achieve  our  aims  peacefully  if  pos- 
sible, but  forcibly  if  necessary."  The  historical  experience  of 
the  proletariat  teaches  them  that  force  will  be  necessary :  it 
all  depends  upon  the  bourgeoisie  whether  it  will  or  not. 

THE  END. 


Dictatorship  of  the  Proletariat,  by  L.  Kameneff $.10 

Great  Initiative,   by  N.   Lenin   $.15 

Proletarian  Dictatorship  and  Terrorism, 

by  Karl   Raciek  ; $.20 

Proletarian  Revolution,  by  N.  Lenin  $.40 

State  and  Revolution,  by  N.  Lenin  $.40 

Collapse  of  the  Second  International, 

by   N.   Lenin   $.40 

"LEFT  WING"  Communism,  by  N.  Lenin  $.50 

Trade  Unions  in  Soviet  Russia,  by  A.  Lozovsky  $.50 

A.  B.  C.  of  Communism,  by  N.  Bucharin 

and  E.  Preobraschensky  —  Volume  I  $.50 

Militarism  and  Anti-Militarism,  by  Karl   Liebknecht  $1.00 

First  Principles  of  Working  Class  Education 

by  James  Clunie  $2.00 


MARXIAN  EDUCATIONAL  SOCIETY 

5941  Jos.  Campau  Avenue,  Detroit,  Mich. 


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